Boole • 5\ S 



THE 



.TOLY communion, 

ITS 

PH.LOSOPHY, THEOLOGY, AND PRACTICE. 



JOHN BERNARD DALGAIRNS, 



I 



PRIEST OF THE ORATORY OF ST. PHILIP NERI. 



Aiipci to diipacOai 6 Qebg. 
Sitit sitiri Deus. 

St. Gregory Nazianzen. 




DUBLIN : 
JAMES DUFFY, 15, WELLINGTON QUAY ; 

AND 

LONDON: 22, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
1868. 

[ The right of translation is reserved by the Author, .] 



DUBLIN ; 

$)rittt*b I^g |smus fgtooK, 
2, Ckampton-qoay. 



PREFACE. 



It is with exceeding diffidence that I present this book 
to the public. The number and importance of the sub- 
jects which it embraces would naturally have called 
for far more leisure than falls to the lot of a London 
priest. On the other hand, it is impossible for one who 
has, at any time of his life, formed habits of thought 
and study, and who has the deep and strong convictions, 
produced by the blessed possession of the faith, not to 
^el the most earnest wish to help others in intellectual 
aggies, which he has once himself gone through, 
ider the influence of such feelings, a man writes be- 
iuse he can hardly help writing, his book becomes a 
>art of his work for souls. Nor does he stop to calculate 
its exact value ; it is enough for him to have something 
to say on subjects which are his very life, and that he 
hopes that, with all its faults, it may be of service to 
some. 

In order to prevent mistakes, I wish to repeat what I 
have said elsewhere, that I am in no way committed by 
my argument to any of the philosophical views which I 
describe. Not from any tendency to eclecticism, but 



iv 



PREFACE. 



simply because it is no part of my vocation, I should be 
sorry to be thought the advocate of any system. I have 
neither the time nor the talent to frame or even to select 
a philosophy. The conclusion to which I come is, that 
the essentialness of extension to matter is by no means 
a necessary truth ; and the mode by which I prove it is, 
that the contrary has been taught by many great men 
of very various schools. That such a view should have 
been held is quite sufficient for my purpose, without my 
being committed to the opinions of these schools. It 
would, of course, be in vain to deny that I have a lean- 
ing to all doctrines which, under the various names of 
intuitions, innate principles, necessary truths, and imme- 
diate knowledge, teach that the germs of rational, 
metaphysical, and moral truths are placed in the soul by 
the Creator. When, however, I instance St. Thomas, 
St. Bonaventure, Bossuet, Fenelon, and Cardinal Gerdil 
as examples of the philosophers whom I mean, the ex- 
ceeding variety of their opinions is a sufficient guaran- 
tee against my wishing to put myself forward as the 
defender of a particular system. 

Most sincerely do I submit the historical part of my 
book to the correction of the learned, and the practical 
part to that of my brother -priests. If I have ever 
written in a dogmatical tone, nothing has been further 
from my intention. I have ever tried to write as an 
earnest man, with earnest convictions ; but I never for- 
get how limited are my means of study, and my oppor- 
tunities of experience as compared with those of others. 



PREFACE. 



V 



Need I add that I lay my book with the most perfect 
submission at the feet of ecclesiastical authorities ? Not 
a word of what I have written but has been most care- 
fully weighed, lest it should not be in accordance with 
whatever can even remotely be considered as the voice 
of the Church. I am not aware that I have said any- 
thing for which I had not authority. It is, however, 
our misfortune that, living as we do in a country which 
is not Catholic, we are obliged, in order to obtain a hear- 
ing, to master the opinions and to use the language of 
those around us. In thus treating of theological mat- 
ters, I may most unwittingly have used erroneous ex- 
pressions. If so, most unreservedly do I profess my 
perfect willingness to correct them. I claim no indul- 
gence for myself except on the score of upright inten- 
tions. From the bottom of my heart do I disclaim any 
view that theology is to be remodelled to suit the wants 
of the age ; and if I had such a view, I should not be so 
silly as to think myself capable of doing it. If I have 
said anything likely to aid erring and suffering souls to 
see the truth, or adapted to save sinful souls within the 
Church, then may God prosper it. If there be any- 
thing whatsoever in my book which is not in accord- 
ance with the strictest orthodoxy, may it perish for ever. 

The London Oratory, 
Feast of St. John the Baptist, 
1861. 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



The few alterations which I have made in the Second 
Edition of this book require some little comment. 
They almost entirely concern the scientific part of it. I 
am thankful to say that it has been useful to theological 
students, as well as to other readers. Of the three 
translations of it, which have been made on the Con- 
tinent, the French and Italian are the production of men 
of thought and study. For the German translation I am 
indebted not to a student but to a lady, and I am glad 
to bear witness to the ability with which she has exe- 
cuted her task. I have, however, reasons to know that 
in Germany, as well as in England, it has been made 
use of by professors and students. On this account I 
have been desirous to make the theological portion as 
accurate as possible. For this purpose I have added to 
the appendix a note of explanation on certain scholastic 
terms. I have also considerably altered another note, 
in order to make its language more conformable to that 
of authorized schools. I have also, by watching the 
course of contemporary philosophical literature, been 



Vlll 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 



enabled, I hope, to improve the chapter on " Modern 
Theories of Matter." In other respects, and as far as 
concerns the ordinary reader, the book is nearly the 
same. I can only say that I am sincerely thankful 
for the undeservedly kind way in which it has been 
received. 

The London Oratory, 
St. Bernard's Day, 1865. 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION, 



I have only a few observations to make on publishing 
the third edition of this book. 

1. The Italian translation had the great advantage of 
a thorough revision by a distinguished Dominican theo- 
logian of the Convent of San Marco at Florence, to 
whom, as also to my friend and brother, Father Giulio 
Metti, the translator, I take this opportunity of offering 
my hearty thanks. He objected to one passage in 
the Second Chapter, and to Note D of the Appendix, 
as being, I suppose, too ontologistical in expression. 
The ontologistical theory was not that which I had in 
my mind, nor have I ever held it since I apprehended 
its real meaning. T have, however, in this edition 
thoroughly altered the passage so as to clear it of all 
ambiguous language, and have suppressed all that part 
of the note which related to the subject. 

2. In Note J, I have given a short sketch of the con- 
troversy respecting the penitential discipline of the 
Ancient Church. The question is a very important 
one. If it were true that, in the first centuries, the 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



Sacrament of Penance was utterly refused to adulterers, 
murderers, and idolators, it would constitute a most 
startling difference of principle between primitive times 
and our own. I, therefore, laid great stress on the 
opinion of Morinus, Francolinus, and Orsi, that, in the 
Roman Church at least, the Sacrament was never refused 
to any class of sins whatsoever. Since then, I have been 
made aware of the continuation of the controversy in 
Germany. It has been raised afresh by the new light 
thrown on the point by the Philosophumena of Hippo- 
lytus. So much respect is due to the learned men of 
Catholic Germany that I ought to notice it here. Both 
Dollinger and Hagemann have argued that the Roman 
Church did not at one period allow sinners guilty of 
the three sins above mentioned to approach the tribunal 
of Penance. The former allows that the contrary was 
always the practice of the Eastern Church. The latter 
restricts the period of rigour at Rome to the interval 
between the time of Hernias and the Decree of Pope 
Zephyrinus. Last year, however, a most excellent 
book was published on the whole subject of the Peni- 
tential Discipline of the Church of the First Seven 
Centuries by EVank,*a learned member of the University 
of Wiirzburg, and recommended by Dr. Hergenrother, 
the celebrated author of the Life of Photius, and one of 
the most learned historians of the day. The views of 
the author have been approved by a writer in the 

* Die Bussdisciplin der Kirche von den Apostelzeiten bis zum sie- 
benten Jahrhundert. Mainz, 1867- 



PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 



Tubingen Quartalschrift, a periodical which has amongst 
its editors Dr. Hefele, a name which stands among the 
very highest in point of ecclesiastical erudition. I am 
happy to find that the views advocated in the present 
book are identical with those of Herr Frank. He has 
expressly given it as his opinion that I have proved 
the frequency of Communion among the Hermits of 
the Desert. He also agrees with my interpretation of 
Pope Innocent's important letter on death-bed Com- 
munions. Again, he holds, in words which I cannot 
forbear quoting, the principle that the Church was ever 
in practice far milder than her own written laws. 
Speaking of the severity of the Canons, he says : " Very 
different will be the picture which a man will form for 
himself, if he takes the trouble to study accurately the 
discipline of the first centuries, and to search into all 
its details. He will be very much surprized and asto- 
nished to find a gentleness in the application of the 
written law of which he could have formed no idea. 
Above all, wherever he casts his eye, he will see not 
only individual bishops but whole churches penetrated 
and governed by St. Alphonso's maxim : be like a lion 
in the pulpit, like a lamb in the confessional." I need 
scarcely add, that the same writer expressly and, as it 
seems to me with great success, takes the opposite side 
to Dollinger and Hagemann in the controversy with 
respect to the discipline of the Roman Church. He 
has also thrown out excellent and original suggestions 
towards proving that sacramental absolution was given 



xii PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION. 

at the very beginning of the sinner's entrance on his 
term of canonical penance. 

This coincidence with men, to whose learning the 
little which I possess is as nothing, enables me to pub- 
lish this new edition with more confidence than I have 
felt with respect to its predecessors. 



St* Mary's, Sydenham Hill, 
St. Anselm's Day, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOLY COMMUNION. 



CHAP. PAGE 

I— ST. THOMAS AQUINAS .... 1 

IL— MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER ... 36 

PART II. 

THE THEOLOGY OF HOLY COMMUNION. 

I.— UNION WITH GOD 85 



II. — THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT 115 
III.— THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS - 154 

PART III. 

THE PKACTICE OF HOLY COMMUNION, 



L— HISTORY OF COMMUNION - - - - 187 

II.— SEVERITY AND RIGORISM - - - 240 

III— THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT - . 288 

IV.— THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION 310 

V— THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS ... 330 

VI.— THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY - - 354 

VII.— THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT - 379 

APPENDIX - ... 405 



PART I. 



THE PHILOSOPHY OF HOLY COMMUNION. 



THE 



HOLY COMMUNION, 

&c, &c. 



CHAPTEE I. 

ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 

I was sitting in an old castle on the banks of the Frith 
of Clyde on a beautiful morning in September. It was 
the eve of our Lady's Nativity, and all nature seemed 
to have put on its best to prepare to celebrate Mary's 
birth-day. The castle was built on a high terrace, sepa- 
rated only by a green meadow from the waters of the 
noble estuary. The wind was swaying to and fro the 
boughs of the still leafy trees in the noble woods of 
beech and oak around the house ; its sound was inex- 
pressibly soothing to ears accustomed to the roar of 
London, and to nerves still painfully twittering with the 
irritating roll of cabs and omnibuses. The breeze could 
just break the surface of the water without lashing it 
into waves, and convert the burnished mirror into a 
glittering and sparkling sheet of fretted silver. The 
little wavelets seemed to leap with joy under the bright 
shining sun. The sky was by no means spotless ; heavy, 
white clouds hung on the horizon, but islands of blue 



2 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



sky were left here and there, and high overhead the 
sun lorded it in a clear heaven, and beautifully lit up 
the fleecy masses till they were absolutely dazzling and 
saturated with light. Guarding the entrance of the 
Gareloch from the w r aters of the Frith, lies the wooded 
promontory of Roseneath. It is said that there had 
been of old a nunnery there, and a fitter spot could not 
have been chosen. Even the restless waters lay still, 
deep and black along its winding shores. The massive 
trees which, robed in every tint of green, grew down 
to the water's edge, threw motionless shadows over the 
mossy turf which appeared at intervals between their 
huge trunks. A more peaceful scene could not be 
conceived : even the humming of the bees around the 
pale flowers of the jessamine, which, mingled with 
myrtle, tapestried the walls of the castle with its 
matted shoots, and embowered my window, only con- 
tributed to make the stillness more soothing. 

Amidst all this tranquil beauty, there was one object 
alone which pained and excited me. On the opposite 
side of the Frith, in a strange proximity to rock, wood, 
and mountain, at the foot of a long range of highlands, 
purpled here and there with heather, green with pas- 
tures, and yellow with corn-fields, lay the busy, popu- 
lous town of Greenock. It looked peaceful enough ; 
the huge line-of-battle ship, with its little fleet of gun- 
boats, lay perfectly still on the bosom of the deep 
estuary. The innumerable masts of the merchant-ships 
in the harbour were too far off to be distinctly seen, 
especially as the smoke issuing from several tall 
chimneys hung like a pall over the town ; and the hum 
of its busy streets w r as perfectly inaudible. Still it was 
impossible to look at it without thinking of what 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



0 



marred the peacefulness of the scene. It probably was 
not worse than other seaports, yet some thousands of 
human beings could not be collected together without 
bringing with them sorrow, passion, and sin in their 
train. There were thousands of passionate human 
hearts in all their varieties — loving, hating, fiery and 
icy-cold, happy and miserable, restless and weary 
hearts. Nor was it possible to forget one dear inmate 
there, one inhabitant of Greenock. In a little back 
street, under a most lowly roof, tended only by a few 
faithful ones, lay Jesus in the tabernacle, with His 
little lamp burning before Him. There was consolation 
enough to heal the most broken-hearted ; peace to still 
the wildest tempest of the soul; love, more than 
enough, to fill the most craving void of the weariest 
heart. Yet all these treasures are unknown, unsus- 
pected, or derided. 

Who could help thinking of all this? I could not 
help saying to myself : Oh ! for the time, when every 
man, woman, and child, from John-o'-Groat's House to 
Solway Frith, and on to the Land's End of Cornwall, 
was naturally, by birthright and without effort, a 
believer in the Blessed Sacrament. Is this state of 
things for ever past? God alone knows; but mean- 
while, there is one thing which we can do to alleviate, 
if not to remedy, this mighty evil ; Ave can surround 
our dear Lord with redoubled love to make up to Him 
for the souls which He loses. Let each of us do his 
little best to make Him better known, for if He is 
better known He must be better loved. 

I was then far away from the Blessed Sacrament; 
for, though the adorable Sacrifice could be offered up 
there, our Lord could not be reserved. But there lay 



4 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



on my table an old book, my constant companion, the 
Summa of St. Thomas. It was the part which related 
to the Blessed Sacrament. I remembered the legend 
which tells how our Lord appeared to him, and said, 
" Well hast thou written of me, Thomas: what reward 
shall I give thee?" and the saint answered: "No re- 
ward do I want, Lord, but Thyself alone." It struck 
me that there were many things in that old book 
which, if translated into the modern language, would 
throw light on the adorable mystery, and I resolved to 
try to express in the language of modern thought the 
simple and beautiful explanations of the loving old 
saint. 

"My flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink 
indeed." Such are the words with which our dear 
Lord announced the wondrous fact. He must needs 
anticipate the time for fully revealing the beautiful 
secret of His Sacred Heart. He will suffer none to 
doubt His love. He erects it at once into a dogma, 
and all must believe that literally and really they were 
to eat His Flesh and to drink His Blood. If they are 
incredulous, they must leave Him. Will ye too go ? 
He said to His apostles. Happy for them that they 
answered through Peter's mouth : Lord, to whom shall 
we go ? Thou hast the words of everlasting life. They 
knew not then what they said, but they knew it after- 
wards, and we know it now. After having been 
emptied of blood in the Passion, the Heart of Jesus is 
not satisfied yet. He cannot bear to take His flight to 
heaven and leave His poor children upon earth. He 
must be with them still, and be united with each of 
them in bonds of which the dearest earthly tie is a 
mere faint symbol. No type or figure will content 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



5 



Him: it must be Himself. Grace itself is but an 
inadequate bond: for, after all, grace is not Jesus. 
Not even a union of soul to soul is enough; Jesus 
must give us all that He is, Body, Soul, and Godhead. 
Insatiable Lord! Eighteen hundred years ago He 
became our Saviour by dying for us on the cross ; but 
His heart cannot rest till He is really united to each 
single human being of us all to the end of time. 

Stupendous purpose, which none but Infinite love 
could conceive, Infinite wisdom plan, and Infinite power 
execute. Let us reckon up all the difficulties in His 
path; let us look them all one by one boldly in the 
face. In no other way can we enter into the thoughts 
of the sacred Heart of Jesus at the moment that He 
held the first Host in His hands. In no other way can 
we estimate the loving determination which would not 
be turned back, but strode right on to its purpose over 
the ruins of all nature's powers. Or rather, let us see 
how, without a ruin, and without catastrophe, love with 
four gentle words noiselessly puts them aside, and cre- 
ates wonders more glorious than were done by the first 
voice that broke the silence of eternity, and said, " Let 
there be light." It is a bold attempt, dear reader. We 
are going down to the primal elements of things. We 
are descending into cavernous depths, where lie the 
roots of spirit and matter, but a saint is our guide, and 
is leading us on with his clear, bright torch. Nor 
should we forget that unbelieving eyes are ever trying 
to scan the abyss of love in the Blessed Sacrament, and 
fancy they see there things which are only evoked 
from their own imagination. It will be well to show 
them, that out of the darkness of the tabernacle, there 
flashes glorious light, which, though it may dazzle, 



6 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



yet does not stupify their intellect. We know full 
well the obstacles which lay in our Lord's way, but 
we know that He is the Almighty, and to our sight 
they are turned into so many mysteries of heavenly 
love. 

First, then, this great work of heavenly grace, by 
which Jesus gives Himself to us, must be secret and 
hidden. The glorious body of our Lord could not 
appear in its heavenly splendour before us, and we con- 
tinue to live. And even if His sweet voice sustained 
us, as it did the apostle at Patmos, still loving famili- 
arity would have been impossible. Besides, the con- 
stant apparition of our Blessed Lord to human sight 
would have utterly destroyed the economy of faith. 
Therefore, the great act by which He is enabled to 
give Himself to us in the Blessed Sacrament, must be 
carried on in utter secrecy, in the deepest silence, in 
the most impenetrable darkness. Even those who 
come closest to the mystery must perceive nothing. 
The hand in which it is effected must feel nothing, the 
eye, which is fixed on the veil which shrouds it, must 
see no change, the ear perceive no sound, though 
between the fingers of the priest, a revolution greater 
than the upheaving of a world is going on. r\o seraph 
wing must proclaim Him near, no thunder of chariot 
wheels announce His approach; He must hide Himself 
that He may be received with love. 

At the same time the laboratory within which the 
wonder is effected, must be perfectly sensible. To be- 
come mortal food, He must be accessible to touch. He 
must quit His invisible world, and enter into that of 
sight. No vague or indefinite presence will come up to 
the tremendous precision of our Lord's words — This is 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



7 



my Body. He says not, here is my Body. We must 
be able to indicate the precise spot where He is, and to 
say — Here is my Lord, not there. At a given moment, 
in a definite place, I receive this which is my Lord : 
such must be the cry of the Christian soul. Oh ! can 
Jesus ever fulfil His own promise, and become our 
food, while He is withdrawn into the blinding light of 
the Father's countenance? But this is the very least 
of His difficulties. Let us not forget that He is in 
heaven, and that heaven is a place. Just as the stars 
have their own place in the firmament, so that each 
individual star can be located in a map, and its 
distance from earth measured like a high-road, so 
heaven itself exists in some part of space and not in 
another. To be in heaven is not only to be in a cer- 
tain state, differing from our earthly state, as waking 
from sleeping, or life from death, but it is to be in a loca- 
lity, in a place where God manifests Himself, where are 
those blessed spirits who see Him as He is. There, too, 
is the living Jesus, His Body glorious and resplendent, 
yet confined to space as much as when held in the 
sweet embrace of Mary's arms on earth, or nailed to the 
cross. He can move like a flash of lightning from one 
part of heaven to the other ; but He must move, in 
order to be in a different part from that in which He 
is. His Body is still flesh and blood, though glorified ; 
it is felt by Mary's touch; its beautiful colours, its 
whiteness, pure as the light itself, and its graceful out- 
line, paint themselves on the retina of her eyes. His 
precious Blood flows as of old from its dear fountain, 
the sacred Heart, through His transparent veins. In a 
word, His Body is still subject to the laws of space, and 
the first law is, that a thing which is in one place can 



8 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



not be in another. He is in heaven, how can He be on 
earth ? 

This is not all. Suppose this first victory over space 
gained ; J esus has achieved nothing in comparison with 
His desires. Our Lord is more ambitious still. When, 
in the wilderness near the lake of Galilee, His pitying 
eyes wandered over the face of the desert, and He saw 
thousands in danger of perishing of hunger, so far had 
they followed Him into its depths, a still wider , vision 
was before His mental vision than even the broad plain 
with that irregular host streaming towards Him. The 
love of Jesus has no horizon; neither time nor space 
can bound it. As He distributed the miraculous food 
to the fainting crowds, through His apostles, it was the 
human race which He saw before Him, and the bread 
was the type of His own Body in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. The wide circle of the Creator's love embraced 
all souls which were to be born till the end of time ; 
and the Sacrament, which was to be its expression, 
must be so arranged as to be capable of indefinite mul- 
tiplication till the day of doom. Oh ! stupendous con- 
ception, which could enter into none but the Heart of 
Jesus. As the mind of God embraces in its vision all 
that lives, down to the scarcely-organised insect that 
dances in the sunshine, so in its degree the human soul 
of Jesus comprehended in its knowledge all souls, past, 
present, and to come. Each one of us, who are now 
suffering and struggling upon earth, was personally 
known to Him then as now. Over us He shed tears 
of blood at Gethsemene ; individually we were before 
His soul, when He offered Himself up for sinners on 
Calvary, and individually we are to be legislated for in 
the institution of the Holy Eucharist. Wide as is the 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



9 



love of Jesus must be the spread of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. He must multiply Himself in proportion as 
there are souls which He loves ; for to each He must 
be severally united. He loves each as though He loved 
no other, and His Body and Blood is to be given 
to each. The Blessed Sacrament is to be infinite in 
the same sense as His human love ; it is to have the 
same sort of ubiquity : for though it is not to be actu- 
ally everywhere, it must have a capacity of being 
wherever there are men. Oh ! think of the result of 
this ! A body of flesh and blood, remaining all that it 
is now, without diminution of quantity, nay, without 
augmentation, is to be in thousands of places on the 
globe at once. Matter is, without stirring from its 
original point of space, to acquire numberless other 
localities at the same moment. The body of Jesus in 
heaven is spiritual, it is true, yet it still has this pro- 
perty of matter, that naturally it is extended ; that is, it is 
in place in such sense, that each part fits into a particular 
part of space, and is not in any other. Being in one 
place implies not being elsewhere. Yet the Body of 
Christ is not only to be in heaven and on earth too, but 
also in numberless spots of that huge earth. How 
exacting are the requirements of the love of Jesus ! 
Further and further, still, the Church of Christ is to 
extend itself ; in conception and in execution it is to be 
alike Catholic, yet, wherever is the Church, there is to 
be the Blessed Sacrament. Wide-spread as the Blood 
of the New Testament must be, not its effect, but itself. 
Not only is the body of Jesus to be like a single flame, 
whose hearth is one place, and which miraculously 
spreads its heat everywhere, and vivifies all that lives; 
but the same identical flame is to be lit up in far distant 



10 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



spots all over God's earth ; on the mountain top and in 
the valley, in the forest and the plain, in the solitude 
and in the city. There is to be no Jerusalem, no Holy 
of Holies for it. It is to be confined to no favoured zone. 
Its object is the union of the Body of Jesus with all 
beings of the race of men, and wherever is a single hu- 
man heart, there must also reach the Blessed Sacrament ; 
and this not in one generation, but to the end of time. 
Such is the ideal of Jesus; oh! how can it be realized? 

Yet even this does not exhaust the love of Jesus. It 
would seem to be enough that the body of Jesus, its 
Blood, its Feet, and Hands, and Sacred Heart, and all 
that it is, should be in many places, nay, by possibility, 
in all, over the face of earth. But furthermore, we 
must remember, that the idea of our Lord included 
more. It was not simply to be adored and raised on 
high, though it is meant also to be the central object of 
Christian worship ; but its ultimate destiny is to become 
our food. The physical reception of His earer Blessed 
Body is to effect a real and spiritual influx of His whole 
life into our inmost being. Food conveys life, is turned 
into our substance, runs in our veins, and forms our 
blood and all the various tissues of our body; in like 
manner the life of Christ is to be poured into our souls. 
Now, food is meant to be daily, constant, accessible, 
familiar, and so in the idea of Jesus was the Blessed 
Sacrament to be. If His whole Heart's Blood is to be 
drink indeed, it must be ever renewed ; if His Body is 
to be our food, it must have an infinite capacity of repli- 
cation. The act of love, which is Communion, was not 
to take place once, but over and over again through- 
out the life of each of us. O Lord, if the soul faints 
with love at the thought of Thy love, so also is the 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



11 



intellect amazed at the greatness of Thy conception. 
It is not only in ten thousands of places that Thy body 
is to be, but in each place thousands of times over. Let 
them come to the altar-rails in crowds, men, women, 
and children ; let the floods of countless communicants 
come streaming up. None is to be denied. Each is to 
receive his Lord, whole and entire, undivided, — nay, 
that I may finish all these wonders in one breath, not 
only undivided but indivisible. The Body of our Lord 
must be in such a state as to preclude the possibility of 
disruption, while it is eaten. Jesus Himself must be 
unhurt and unbroken, even if that which conveys Him 
to us is torn when we receive it. Further, to carry out 
the idea of food, which our Blessed Lord had in His 
mind, the Blessed Sacrament is to be destroyed within 
us, and to disappear, yet the integrity of His Body is 
to be uninjured. It is to be burned up in the fire of 
our bodies, yet His Flesh and Blood are not to be con- 
sumed. How will He effect this marvellous outpouring 
of love? How will He accomplish, in the face of all 
the laws of matter, this prodigal replication, this locating 
of His one Body in numberless places, this perpetual 
consumption, and perpetual reproduction ? Fortunately, 
the treasure of His wisdom is inexhaustible, else it could 
never bear the demands made upon it by the generosity 
of His passionate love. 

This is a rough statement of the difficulties which 
Jesus has encountered and vanquished in the Blessed 
Sacrament. Nor does it diminish our wonder, to say 
that He is God, and all things are easy to Him ; for in 
this case so great is the miracle, that mankind have 
stood aghast at it, and have maintained that it is beyond 
the power of God. And for this reason, we will not 



12 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



fear to pursue the difficulties to the very utmost, since 
the existence of the Blessed Sacrament throws such a 
marvellous light on the greatness as well as the good- 
ness of God. 

That which startles and astonishes men, in transub- 
stantiation, is its being a miracle intruding itself into 
what men regard as their own peculiar domain. It is 
a mystery, thrusting itself into what has ever appeared 
to us most certain and most clear. We can bear to 
hear of the incomprehensible in the world of spirit 
and mind, because that is the very home of mystery ; 
but that abysses should yawn, in what has ever been 
considered firm ground — the world of matter — this 
seems intolerable. We may reduce the wonders of the 
Blessed Sacrament to three, each one of which throws 
into confusion what seemed to us most unquestionable. 

First, we trust implicitly our senses to tell us what 
these objects before us are. One sense may be de- 
ceived ; the panorama which seems to stretch before me 
a landscape of endless depth, may after all be but a few 
feet off ; but if the sight is taken in by the skilful 
colouring, the touch at once corrects its blunder. But 
how can all senses together be at fault? Sight, touch, 
taste, and smell tell us that this is bread; will faith 
venture to tell us, it is the body of our Lord? 

Again, if there be one thing of which we think we 
are more sure than another, which we fancy we know 
and can see through, it is matter. Spirit we abandon 
to God, but matter He seems to have abandoned to us. 
Have we not compelled it to speak, and to give up to us 
the secrets of its inmost constitution? Have we not 
atomic theories to tell us the ultimate elements of which 
all things are made? We have weighed not only the 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



13 



sun and moon, which is comparatively easy, but even 
the invisible particles of matter, and we know the pro- 
portions in which all substances are mixed. We have 
forced the angles of crystals to reveal to us the very 
shapes of atoms which no eye can even see. We can 
change one material thing into another, and then recall 
it again. But amidst all our power over matter, amidst 
all the changes which we can produce in substance and 
property, there is one thing which we cannot do, and 
that is, deprive it of extension. This, as it is argued 
by our opponents, we cannot even conceive to be away. 
We may know our very bodies to be solidified air, but 
the most evanescent gas, if it exist at all, must be ex- 
tended. Compress a body as you will, it must occupy 
space. Yet it is with this very property of extension 
that the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament interferes. 

And this leads me to the third difficulty, which has 
been turned by our enemies into an objection to the 
Catholic doctrine, and which we shall find presently to 
be one with the second. It has been argued by them 
that we cannot conceive a body existing out of space. 
As well might we imagine ourselves outside the dome of 
the sky, and beyond the canopy of heaven, as out of the 
domain of space. It is a universal, invariable law, that 
when once a body is extended, when it has parts, and 
these parts are in juxtaposition one with another, it 
must exist in space. We are sure that this is true of 
the most distant star as of an object close at hand, from 
the very fact that distance, that is, relative position, can 
be predicated of it. We are certain that it would be 
true of all possible bodies in uncreated worlds. It 
stretches around us its vast, illimitable, ever-widening 
circle. We cannot get beyond it, because it follows us 



14 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



everywhere, like a part of ourselves; it is a condition 
of our being. 

Now, say our opponents, if there be one thing more 
than another involved in the notion of a body extended, 
it is, that it cannot at one and the same time be in two 
portions of space. Each part of a body fits in — so to 
speak — to its own part of space, and cannot reach any 
other without first quitting it. It cannot overleap the 
intermediate space in its passage from one to another; 
it can go where it pleases within its vast inevitable 
prison; it can wander from room to room, but as it 
cannot go beyond its precincts, so it cannot be in 
more than one room at a time. It creates its own 
place, since place is only space marked out by the body 
within it ; but it cannot be in more than one at once. 
As well can we expect to live in two ages, two days, 
hours, or minutes at once, as to exist in two places. Yet, 
according to the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, the 
Body of our Lord makes its appearance at one and the 
same time in numberless parts of space. Men have 
asked themselves: can even God do this? It is not 
only, say the enemies of the blessed doctrine, that, as 
in the case of ordinary miracles, God has interfered with 
His own creation, but here He has thrown into con- 
fusion the very elements of thought. It is not only 
that we have never known by experience that a body 
has been in two places at once, but that we cannot con- 
ceive it. Not only has eye never seen it, but thought 
cannot think of it. 

Here, then, we have reached the very bottom of the 
abyss which is opened upon us by the doctrine of the 
Blessed Sacrament. We stand face to face with the 
real difficulty which Jesus has set aside in the great 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



15 



miracle of Transubstantiation ; and we see how deep it 
has led us. The world of mind and the world of mat- 
ter are equally interested in it. We have not sheltered 
ourselves behind the omnipotence of God since even 
that seems to break down before us. We will pursue 
the difficulty to the utmost. Both the infinite power, 
and the infinite love of God, are involved in the doc- 
trine of the Blessed Sacrament, and come out with ten- 
fold brilliancy from all that is said against it. In vindi- 
cating for God power over matter and space, we shall 
enter more deeply into the very structure of the doc- 
trine of the Blessed Sacrament. If we cannot on this 
side the grave learn how Jesus has effected this great 
miracle of love, we shall, at all events, see more clearly 
what He has done for us. All discussions on the great 
doctrine should be like the grand picture of the Dispute 
on the Blessed Sacrament, where the monstrance is set 
on high upon the altar, and, for burning lights around, 
are the four great doctors of the Latin Church, with 
St. Thomas and St. Bonaventure, while, at a distance, 
heathen sa^es and the masters of human thought are 
gazing in wonder at the sight, and disputing about its 
meaning; and above are Jesus and Mary, and the saints 
of Paradise, looking peacefully down upon the earthly 
scene. What if we should find that for the last seven 
hundred years all professors of mental science have 
been consciously or unconsciously disputing about the 
Blessed Sacrament. 

Strange to say, if there be ideas which more than 
others demonstrate their own uncertainty by the various 
views to which they have given rise, it is precisely those 
of matter and space. So far are the principles which 
concern them from being self-evident, that it is impossi- 



16 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



ble to advance a step in the knowledge of them without 
encountering the fiercest controversies. There lie 
around and within us two worlds, the world of spirit 
and the world of matter. All allow the former to be 
most incomprehensible and unfathomable, yet it is hard 
to say whether we know not more of mind-force, with 
all its mysteries of consciousness, free-will and person- 
ality, than of the strange aggregate of wondrous forces 
which we call matter. What can be more solid than 
the outer world, says the common sense of mankind. I 
can taste, and touch, and feel it. Here, at least, is some 
thing positive, something which is not theory or idea. 
Yet the very instant we begin to exercise our minds on 
this mass, which seems so solid, it appears to melt in our 
grasp. What do we know of the inner constitution of 
that strange, restless, phantasmagoria, which we call 
nature, world, material universe? Can we be said to 
know anything more than the Non Ego, which is the 
baby's first discovery, at the moment when it catches 
sight of anything beyond its own mysterious self? The 
empire which we have gained over matter is marvellous 
and fearful ; our knowledge of its phenomena, and of 
the laws which guide them, is a glorious conquest 
achieved by human intellect and human labour; but 
what do we know of matter itself? What are the 
things of which we know so well the laws and the 
appearances? So little can the senses tell us of them, 
that the knowledge that there is any substance at all, is 
not owing to touch or sight, or any of the five inlets by 
which the outward world forces itself in upon our soul, 
but to the mind alone ; and this is so certain, that the few 
who have denied the existence of substance, have done 
so on the ground that sensible experience cannot furnish 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



17 



us with it. The senses tell us little more than that they 
themselves are modified; they are, after all, only our- 
selves feeling. An intuition of the mind, beyond mere 
sense-perception, announces to us that one outward 
permanent thing, which we call a substance, produces 
these various sensations. It is known by virtue of a 
primitive law of the intellect excited and awakened by 
our sensations, but not inferred from them.* What 
right have we to assume that there is something 
solid outside of us; a body which resists and presses, 
beyond the mere feeling of resistance and of pres- 
sure? None, except that an instinct of our mind 
tell us so. There was a time, though we cannot re- 
member it, when the world, with all its numberless 
moving figures, appeared to us nothing more than a 
great flat surface, on which were thrown those varied 
hues, shifting like the colours caused on a wall by the 
magic lantern. The child, as it lies speechless on its 
mother's lap, and restlessly moves its little arms in the 
air, is beginning its education, and is learning that there 
is depth and distance in the picture before it. Its 
mind gives a unity to each object before it, and sepa- 
rates off into various substances that which appeared at 
first one confused whole; and no less than the infant is 
the chemist, after all the glorious conquests of his science, 
indebted to his mind for the idea of substance, without 
which his whole theories will fall to the ground. How 
else does he know that, beneath the veil of these evanes- 

* It is not matter or body which I perceive by my senses, but only 
extension, figure, colour, and certain other qualities, -which the con- 
stitution of my nature leads me to refer to something, which is ex- 
tended, figured, and coloured. D. Stewart, Elem., i, 46. 

C 



18 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



cent phenomena, which he manages so cleverly, after 
he has changed over and over again colour, form, and 
every property, one after another, there is still an inde- 
structible thing, which he calls substance or matter? 
What' is this same mysterious thing, so real yet so fleet- 
ing, so inert and yet so active, so dead, and yet so quick ? 
Strange, plastic element, how obediently it lends itself 
to every force which God has created ! How it thrills to 
the touch of light, electricity, and heat ! How readily the 
brute dead elements, once imprisoned in primeval gra- 
nite, obey the action of the vital force, and turn them- 
selves into leaf and flower in the living organism of the 
plant ! How wonderfully the self-same thing becomes 
blood, or bone, or muscle, when it enters into the com- 
position of the human body ! Yet, though we may 
w^atch its changes, the Proteus itself eludes all our 
efforts, and slips away just when we expect to force it 
to disclose its secret. It is with a sort of awe-struck re- 
verence that we learn that all in this vast world — 
emeralds and rubies and all resplendent gems — the dark 
earth beneath our feet and the glittering gold, all 
shapes wild, monstrous and beautiful, the living plants 
and human flesh, all are made out of some sixty ele- 
ments; yet, if we were to reduce them still further, we 
should not get nearer to the mystery of the ultimate 
analysis of matter. No atomic theory has yet ap- 
proached it. Chemistry can only declare that, as far as 
it can see, atoms are undivided ; whether they are ab- 
solutely indivisible, or not, it cannot tell. That be- 
longs to the science of mind, and mental science is 
at fault. It sees that infinite divisibility is a para- 
dox; yet if matter is essentially extended, there can be 
no term to its division, since, however minute its 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



19 



particles, they must be still extended, and therefore 
divisible. 

Now, then, at last we seem to have reached the utmost 
term of human thought on the subject of matter, and 
we find ourselves in the region of the incomprehensible. 
Reason seems in hopeless conflict with itself ; we have 
stumbled on a mystery, where we thought that all was 
most clear. No wonder that a philosopher of our own 
day, the very representative of common sense, has said, 
that no man was worthy of the name of metaphysician 
who had not some time in his life felt an intellectual 
doubt about the existence of matter No wonder that 
some outside the Church have gone beyond doubt, and 
have asserted that the outward world was not an objective 
reality. We do not agree with them, if for no other 
reason, because the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament 
forbids it. Nevertheless, we have said enough to show 
that matter and its properties are by no means so devoid 
of mystery as we supposed. In what is most finite, we 
have found the Infinite. Under the veil of matter we 
have found God ; let us tremble and adore 

We have seen that when mind begins to exercise itself 
on matter, it makes wilder work with it than even the 
chemist's fiery furnace ; now let us turn to the other 
idea upon which the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament 
turns — I mean the idea of space. Let us look into 
our own minds, and see what they tell us of this space 
of which men say so confidently, that it has eternal, 
inscrutable laws which God Himself can no more alter 
than He can do wrong. Under what genus shall we 
class it? what shall we call it? Is it a being, a sub- 
stance? No, neither one nor the other. We stretch 
forth our hands, and if they meet nothing to resist 



20 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



them we say there is space. If we could imagine 
ourselves standing on the outer edge of this vast uni- 
verse, beyond the most distant star-nebula, looking down 
into the vast abyss of nothingness, into what the 
schoolmen call imaginary spaces, where no air breathes, 
and no light undulates, and no life or thing exists, we 
should say there is space. Is it, then, darkness, chaos, 
nothing? Oh no ! if ever there was a reality it is this. 
It is God's shackle-bolt which He has fixed on all crea- 
tion, and which we drag with us wherever we go, too 
real a fetter to be nothing. If it is not an object, is it a 
relation between objects, a distance between two things? 
It may be so, and yet how many difficulties are there 
even here ? These relations are finite, space is infinite ; 
they are fleeting, and change perpetually; space is 
necessary. They are all in space ; it is a vast, all-em- 
bracing circle, which contains them; how can it be 
identical with them ? We seem to be -in this dilemma 
with respect to space ; either there are two spaces, utterly 
different from each other — the ideal, infinite space, con- 
ceived by the mind, and the bounded, limited, real space 
around us ; or else the real and the ideal are the exact 
representations the one of the other; both infinite, both 
necessary. If we say that real space does not corre- 
spond to our notion of it, we find ourselves involved in 
endless difficulties. First, the question recurs, what 
then is real space? Secondly, our only warrant for 
believing in that external space is the idea which is 
within us, apart from experience. If, then, the idea is 
a figment of our imagination, our belief in the reality 
of space is imperilled. The real and ideal stand or fall 
together. If, on the other hand, there be a real space 
outside of us, exactly corresponding to our conception 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



21 



of it, then again arises the question, what is this thing, 
boundless, independent, necessary? We involuntarily 
ask ourselves, is it God? and some have actually held 
that it is one of His attributes. What is this strange 
thought, so like the thought of God, yet which it would 
be blasphemy to confound with it? Portentous idea, 
it oscillates between nothingness and infinity; at one 
moment it seems identical with emptiness, the next mo- 
ment it assumes the form and attributes of God. No 
sense can have furnished us with it. Eye has not re- 
vealed space to us ; the ear, as it listens through the 
silence of the night, can catch no sound of it; no touch 
can grasp it ; only spirit can think it ; and that seems to 
lose itself in endless conflict, when it tries to make its 
thoughts consistent with each other. Whence then does 
the mind get this mysterious idea, which it does not 
frame arbitrarily, since it is the indispensable medium 
of all view of the outer world, yet which it does not 
derive from sense? Thus, again, we are arrived at the 
very elements of thought, and we can go no further. 
We have impinged on mystery ; we are face to face with 
God. 

What we have already said is enough to show that, 
even in the natural order, the ideas with which the 
Blessed Sacrament is concerned are replete with mystery. 
The sphere in which, for the most part, the wonders of 
transubstantiation take place, lies beyond the region of 
physical science. Behind the world of phenomena there 
is the world of substance, into which no experiment 
can penetrate. As well might you dissect a body, and 
argue against the existence of the soul, because the 
scalpel has not brought it to light, or take to pieces a 
magnetized bar of iron, and feel disappointment at not 



22 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



seeing the magnetic force, as draw any conclusions 
against transubstantiation from external nature. The 
wondrous change there effected is unique in its kind, 
and none of the marvellous transformations in nature 
can either be paralleled with it or opposed to it. It all 
takes place down deep in a realm where only thought 
can penetrate ; and we have seen how thought fails when 
it ventures into this bottomless abyss. We do not wish, 
however, to fall back upon a hopeless scepticism, in 
order to defend the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. 
We would rather pass in review the various revolutions 
of thought on such matters, since the human mind has 
been re-awakened after the long sleep of the dark ages, 
and see what light they can throw on what our Blessed 
Lord does for us every day at the altar. 

There was once a time when there reigned on earth a 
philosophy, borrowed from an old heathen, yet singu- 
larly adapted to convey the doctrine of the Blessed 
Sacrament; and, at the same time, God sent on earth, 
for the glory of His Church, a great intellect, wonder- 
fully adapted to lay the treasures of heathen wisdom at 
the feet of our crucified Lord. With a mind singularly 
honest, calm, and profound, St. Thomas brought to the 
defence of the truth a beautiful soul, purified from 
earthly passion, and a fit instrument for the operation 
of God's Holy Spirit. Let us see how he treats the 
two great mysteries of the Blessed Sacrament. We 
will take what he has said out of the hard phraseology 
of the schools, and show how St. Thomas brought back 
into circulation ideas which, even now, can be a fitting 
vehicle for the doctrines of the Church, however they 
may have been changed and modified by the progress 
of modern thought. 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



23 



All the sensible objects of the external world are in 
a state of perpetual flux and change, and we conceive 
of all these changes, not as unconnected phenomena, 
occurring successively, without connection one with 
another, but as in various ways issuing one out of 
another. The mind creates unities of various sorts for 
these seemingly fitful and fantastic changes, and reduces 
to order all these wild and irregular appearances. Of 
these unities, added on by the mind to the multiform 
phenomena of nature, the two principal ones are sub- 
stance and cause. W e reduce the accidents and pro- 
perties, or more or less indispensable qualities of an 
object, to a unity, by assigning them to one substance; 
and again, when the connection between different 
phenomena is more than a mere sequence of time, 
we say that one thing is the cause of another. No 
matter how utterly different phenomena may be, yet, 
by an irresistible law of our minds, not learned by habit, 
but in some way involved in the very constitution of 
our nature, we regard them as in some way united 
together. Where there was but yesterday a beautiful, 
clear river, rushing down to the sea, and bearing num- 
berless ships upon its bosom, there is now an icy sub- 
stance, differing from water in every possible quality ; 
a hard highway, over which men, horses, and waggons 
may pass in safety, solid, opaque, and motionless. The 
colour and every quality and accident are completely 
changed, and yet we all believe that, to say the least, 
the ice is in some way identical with the water. The 
mind concludes an intimate connection between pheno- 
mena so utterly dissimilar. Physical science is the action 
of mind upon the wondrous changes which are effected 
in the external world. Medieval philosophers gazed 



24 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



with awe, as we do now, upon the phenomena of nature. 
They remembered the words of Holy Writ, that the 
earth gave forth the green herb and such as yielded 
seed, and the fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind, and 
they asked themselves how the materials of the vile 
earth could be transformed into the beautiful green 
tree, with its graceful foliage, or into the numberless 
plants which spread over its surface, and develop into 
lovely, sweet-smelling flowers on its bosom. They ad- 
mired the various qualities of the vegetable creation ; 
how one plant lulls us to sleep, while another assuages 
a raging fever, and a third poisons our blood. Or 
else they thought with greater awe of the wonders 
of animal life, of the marvellous, transformation of 
the food into the substance of our bodies, and how 
the same thing turns into blood and flesh, bone and 
hair. 

Concerning these most wonderful phenomena, num- 
berless questions thronged upon their minds as they do 
upon ours. Is there but one matter in heaven and 
earth, or is each object made of its own kind of stuff? 
Is the bright star of the same material as the ground 
under our feet, and the forest tree as the gold in the 
mine, and is the difference between them solely owing 
to the insertion, so to speak, of different properties into 
this one matter ? What is the relation between matter 
and its accidents and properties ? What happens in all 
these marvellous transformations? When the colour, 
taste, smell, and shape of the original substance are all 
gone, and others have come in their stead, does any- 
thing whatsoever remain of the original structure, and 
whence came these new qualities? Is new matter per- 
petually coming into the world, or is the old, primeval 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



25 



matter of the first creation thus marvellously trans- 
formed into every imaginable substance? 

All these questions occupied St. Thomas Aquinas as 
much as they do the natural philosopher of the present 
day: but he solved them differently. It is now held that 
matter and its properties are in the closest relation the 
one to the other, and that the qualities are educed from 
the matter. It is now thought that nothing new is ever 
brought into the material world, and that all the wonder- 
ful changes which astonish us are only the result of fresh 
combinations of the forces of the matter of the original 
creation. Nothing is lost even in the wildest changes and 
most violent catastrophes. The very phosphorus which 
burned in the rocks, when they were liquid fire, before 
the surface of the earth was cold, has now found its 
way into our blood, and is running in our veins. Again, 
in the changes which take place in individual substances, 
it is not that new properties have been produced, but 
that latent powers have been educed, which new circum- 
stances have brought out of the original matter. Add 
a little charcoal to iron, and the self-same iron becomes 
steel, because the charcoal has developed qualities which 
were there before. The most beautiful colours may be 
extracted from the dirtiest ores, because the active 
powers which produce the requisite impression on our 
visual organs were already there. In every case, it is 
some fresh combination of the original matter, or even 
as in isomeric bodies, merely a new arrangement of the 
self-same particles, which produces these wonderful 
results. Often the old properties which had utterly dis- 
appeared may be brought back: the solid which had 
evaporated in gas, or become fluid, may regain its soli- 
dity, and all because the original matter is undestroyed, 



26 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



and because it still contains latent within it the active 
force which can, at any moment, as soon as the requi- 
site conditions are restored, produce the properties 
which it lost when they were withdrawn. 

Far different were the views which prevailed in the 
time of St. Thomas. Matter was not considered to be 
an active force, gifted with certain determinate pro- 
perties by God; it was a mere dead, inactive element, 
with no quality at all of its own, but capable of be- 
coming the subject of any qualities whatsover, on the 
infusion of certain occult entities, called, in scholastic 
language, forms. It is difficult for us to conceive a 
system so utterly at variance with our modes of thought ; 
but we must simply accept it as a fact, that such was 
the opinion universally taught by our ancestors in the 
schools of Paris, Oxford, and Salamanca, and all over 
the face of Europe. They could not conceive that the 
wondrous changes which take place in the qualities of 
a given substance, could proceed from within, and be 
the result of the varied activity of the matter itself; 
they, therefore, imagined that each successive change 
was caused by the infusion from without of the new 
quality which it assumed. Each quality they looked 
upon as a separate form, perfectly adventitious to the 
matter. Hardness, fluidity, colour, sweetness, shape, 
gravity, even extension, were each of them a separate 
entity, which was, so to speak, imposed upon the matter, 
not natural to it. Matter was a mere passivity, capable 
of receiving any quality whatsoever, precisely because 
it had absolutely none of its own. Of these forms, 
some were accidental, others substantial, but all were 
equally separable from, and foreign to the matter to 
which they belonged. 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



27 



Moreover, the same principle applied also to what 
would now be called the primary qualities of matter, 
such as extension and solidity. None of them were re- 
garded as the essence of matter, or, what was then the 
same thing, as belonging to the essential idea of a ma- 
terial thing. All were looked upon as grouped around 
the quiddity or substance of the object, and conse- 
quently separable from the reality as well as the idea, at 
least, by God's power, even if inseparable naturally. 

Such was the doctrine taught in the time of St. 
Thomas on the subject of material things. Having pre- 
mised thus much on the point of view from which the 
schoolmen regarded matter, we shall be the better pre- 
pared to understand what follows. Let us now see how 
he applied philosophy to the elucidation of the great 
object of his love — the Blessed Sacrament. 

Let us go to the convent of the Black Friars at 
Oxford, in the river-island near St. Ebbe's, past Frides- 
wide's Saxon shrine, under the shadow of Oseney Abbey. 
The thirteenth century is coming to a close. St. Thomas 
Aquinas is far away in Italy, soon about to go to his long 
rest with our Lord, of whom he had written so well; 
but one of his disciples is lecturing. Enter the cloisters ; 
mingle in the crowd of scholars who surround his chair. 
Let us, too, listen to what the master says on the sub- 
ject of the Blessed Sacrament, only taking the liberty 
to translate his scholastic terms into plain English. 

We are taught by Holy Church that a marvellous 
change takes place in the act of consecration of the Holy 
Eucharist. Jesus, blessed be His holy name, has pro- 
mised us that when the priest pronounces the words of 
consecration over bread, all that is really bread is taken 
away, and there comes in its stead His most holy Body. 



28 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



By the power of the same words, the sensible qualities 
of bread are separated from it, and remain behind as a 
veil round the Body of the Lord, when the reality of 
bread is gone. Such is the promise of Jesus, and we 
believe it, because He is Almighty God, and He can 
mould His own creatures as He pleases, according to 
His will. In order, however, to see as deeply as we can 
into these mysteries of love, let us see whether what has 
been told us by the masters of human science can throw 
any light upon what our dear Lord has done. 

Know then, that in all substances in this great 
universe there are ever two principles— the matter and 
the form. Matter is the dull, dead principle of which all 
tinners are made, but which is nothing determinate in 
itself. It has no activity, no shape, no colour, no qualities. 
It never is found separate from some form or other, but 
it has none of its own, and becomes all in turn. The 
form, on the contrary, is the active principle of all 
things. It comes to the dead matter and clothes it at 
once with colour, moulds it into shape, and gives it 
force and power. It gives greenness to the tree, bril- 
liancy to the gem, healthful qualities to the drug, the 
power of burning to the fire. Nay, it gives existence 
to all these, since without the form there would be no 
trees, no gems, no medicine, and no flame. When a 
change takes place in a substance, one form is changed 
into another; matter is the subject of all change, but 
the cause of none. It passively relinquishes one form 
and unresistingly receives another. The union of the 
matter and the form makes up the substance, and when 
the union is dissolved, the substance disappears. 

See now what Jesus does in the Blessed Sacrament. 
Never for a moment does He lose His absolute power 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



29 



over the creatures of His hand. The activity of all 
nature's varied forms are by His permission, nay, 
rather are the results of His presence ; for when we say 
that He is present everywhere, we do not mean that 
He is there as a mere spectator. He is there by 
essence, presence, and power, and with Him to be pre- 
sent is to act, and to give out virtue. The power of 
the Father, the wisdom of the Son, the goodness of the 
Holy Ghost, are everywhere. In all the strange forces 
of nature He works in person. The substantial form 
which, united with the matter, is erected into an indi- 
vidual substance, as well as each accidental form which 
gives colour, shape, taste, or any other quality, all those 
are but the result of the activity of Him who is ever at 
work, yet ever at rest. Why, then, can He not, with a 
word, take away the substantial form and the matter of 
bread, and leave only the accidental forms which He 
Himself gave them? Why can He not, with one and 
the same word, substitute the substance, that is, the 
matter and substantial form, with all the accidents of 
the Body of Jesus, for the bread which was there, by a 
miraculous exertion of force, which we may well call 
by the name of transubstantiation ? 

But this brings us to another question far deeper and 
higher, from which we will not shrink, because it is our 
wont to solve all difficulties brought against the Holy 
Faith. The feeble intellect cannot prove the doctrines 
which rest on faith, but it can always show that the 
arguments against it can be destroyed. We will ad- 
dress ourselves, therefore, to the question, how it is that 
the Body of Jesus can be in heaven and on many altars 
of the earth at once. We will boldly plunge into the 
discussion for the love of Jesus and in the name of God. 



30 ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



All things are possible with God, and yet God can do 
no wrong ; and in like manner God cannot make two 
contradictories to be true at the same time, as He can- 
not speak what is absurd. But who will venture to 
say that there is any contradiction in the relations 
which the miracle of transubstantiation produces be- 
tween the Body of our Lord and space? God, it is 
true, has chosen that all His creatures should naturally 
be in some way bound by space and time.* It is the 
prerogative of God that He is Eternal and Infinite. 
His thoughts require no time and His actions no space. 
But there is a gulf between God and His highest crea- 
ture, and every creature is in some way, more or less, 
naturally shackled by space and time ; even the magni- 
ficent world of spirits in some degree feels these univer- 
sal fetters upon it. The very angels had a birthday, 
and can remember the moment when they awoke to 
consciousness and to life. Each of them has a history, 
though it be measured by the revolution of ages. Nay, 
they have also a birth-place, for they were born in the 
empyrean heaven. And as their lives had a beginning, 
and their power is finite, so even their glorious spirits, 
to this day, feel in their inmost being those universal 
limits. Instantaneous as is the work of their grand 
intelligences, yet the very cherubim have a progress in 
knowledge, and though their flight be as rapid as the 
lightning, and the field of their power far more vast 
than the wide earth, yet they move in time, and their 
range is limited. And if we turn to the souls of the 
race of man, it needs but few words to show how they 
are fettered by space and time. Their spirits may beat 

* For the scholastic idea of space, see Appendix A. 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



31 



at the bar of their prison, but they are no less captive. 
Time is a condition of all our intellectual labours. Our 
thoughts flow successively, and in vain would we hasten 
their march ; nay, they take their inevitable colouring 
and their fixed shape from the phantoms which come 
to them from the world of space without. Neverthe- 
less, if we think more deeply on the matter, we shall 
find that there is very much which is relative in the 
modes in which creatures are affected by space and 
time. 

All created things, then, feel the universal sway of 
space and time, but in very different ways. They are 
conditions of being, but they vary in their influence 
according to the nature of the being with which they 
come in contact. Angelic natures feel the bonds of 
space and time in a far less degree than the mind of 
man, and our souls again in a very different way from 
our bodies. God can relax or tighten the grasp of 
space upon us as He pleases. Let Him alter the condition 
of our souls, and space will have less dominion over us ; 
and let Him but grant new and unknown powers to our 
bodies, and their relations to space will be utterly 
changed. Nay, more, we can see by reflection what is 
that very quality of our body which binds us to space. 
Compare soul and body together, and see why one is so 
comparatively free from space, though the other is 
bound to it by adamantine chains. The spirit of man 
is an unextended thing ; it has no parts lying one out- 
side the other. A spiritual substance can have no ex- 
tension. For this reason it is that the soul can only be 
said to be localized indirectly through the body. It 
looks into the realms of space through its senses. It 
may be said to be in many places at once, since it is 



32 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



wholly and entirely at once in every part of the body. 
It is at once, and as much in the blood as in the brain, 
in the heart as in the nerves. It is evident, then, that 
although creatures have all some relation to space, yet 
these relations vary according to the nature of the crea- 
ture. An angel is not bound to space like a human 
soul, nor a soul like a body. In other words, the laws 
of space vary with each kind of being. What then 
can be plainer than that God can alter the relation of a 
being to space, simply by making some alteration in that 
being? There is no contradiction in terms in the altera- 
tion of the laws of space, since they vary for different 
natures. From this it follows, therefore, that it is quite 
conceivable that material things might be so altered 
by their Sovereign Lord and Master, as to be under 
space in quite a different way from what they are 
now. 

Furthermore, we can even by an effort see to a certain 
extent what would be requisite to make material things 
resemble immaterial in their relation to space. The 
reason why a soul can, so to speak, penetrate into space 
in many places at once, is because it is unextended. 

Let the body be but unextended like the soul, and it 
will partake thus far of the properties of spirit, that it 
can appear in space in many places at once. 

The whole question then resolves itself into this — 
Can a body be unextended? Who will say that God 
cannot take from a body the property of extension? 
What contradiction is there in it? Is it not easy for us 
to conceive substance without extension ? If we take 
to pieces the idea of substance, we shall find that it is 
quite independent of quantity, on which extension de- 
pends, for the smallest grain of gold is as really and 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



33 



substantially gold as all the precious metal contained in 
the whole universe. Again,* quantity is a sensible thing 
which is seen by the eye and felt by the touch ; but as 
for substance, it is revealed to us by the mind alone. 
Let God but only reduce a body to the state of pure 
substance, and it ceases at once to be extended, without 
ceasing to be a body. It is by extension that a body 
becomes subject to the laws of space; take extension 
away, and it partakes at once of some of the preroga- 
tives of spirit. 

This then is what God has done to the Body of 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. It has ceased to be 
extended, and all at once it is freed from the fetters 
which bound it to place. It is not so much that it is in 
many places at once as that it is no longer under the 
ordinary laws of space at all. It pervades the Host like 
a spirit. It uses, indeed, the locality formerly occupied 
by the bread, in order to fix itself in a definite place, but 
it only comes into the domain of space at all indirectly 
through the species, as the soul only enters into its pre- 
sent relations with space through the body. Who will 
say that this involves contradiction, or that it is beyond 
the power of Omnipotence? 

Such was the idea of the miracle of Transubstantia- 

tion taught by the great saint of the middle ages. It 

is a beautiful relic of a time when men believed in 

God far otherwise than they do now. By a sort of happy 

transcendentalism, God was to his mind what space is 

in modern philosophy. God is the necessary condition 

through which he views all things. As for space, our 

present relations with it, instead of being an invariable 

* Vide Appendix, Note B, on certain Scholastic Terms, especially 
"quantity." 

D 



34 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



necessity, are but a state of things relative to human 
nature. There is no great objective space; or if there 
is, it is not terrible, infinite, immeasurable, since its 
relations vary with the various beings in the created 
hierarchy. He ventures to suppose that an angel's 
spirit has other thoughts of space than we, since its 
relations to it are utterly different from ours. Matter 
is to him not the huge independent power that men 
now suppose it to be; it is still plastic to the hand of 
God as the first day of its creation, ready to receive 
any form in which He chooses to mould it. Body 
itself has an immaterial element in it ; it may throw off 
the quantity by which it enters into the world of 
matter, and become pure substance, and what is sub- 
stance but something akin to spirit, since it is invisible 
to sense, and is the object of the mind alone? 

Such was the system elaborated by a saint about the 
Holy Eucharist, the object of his love. As he trem- 
blingly held the Blessed Sacrament in his hands at 
Mass, he longed to penetrate into its glorious mysteries, 
and this was the result. It is the boldest, the simplest, 
the most intelligible idea of the great doctrine. It 
rests on two great principles. Give St. Thomas his 
view of substance and of extension, and with it you 
can construct the Blessed Sacrament. 

For hundreds of years it reigned paramount, if not 
alone, in the schools of Christendom. No other system 
has gained over the European mind, for so long a time, 
a hold so wide and so universal. It is now nearly for- 
gotten ; and it is supposed by the world that the doc- 
trine of the Blessed Sacrament has fallen with it. It 
would be a sufficient and true answer to this objection 
to say that the cause of that blessed doctrine is separate 



ST. THOMAS AQUINAS. 



35 



from that of St. Thomas ; that as it existed before the 
Saint expressed it in the terms of the Peripatetic philo- 
sophy, so it will exist after that philosophy has ceased 
to be believed. The great doctrine of Transubstantia- 
tion, however, touches, as we have seen, upon the 
deepest foundations of human thought. It proceeds 
upon ideas which must necessarily appear in all philo- 
sophies. If it could be proved that there was no such 
thing as substance, that substance is not separable from 
phenomena, that unextended matter is a contradiction 
in terms, it would be a difficulty in the way of the 
reception of the dogma. I need not say that that 
blessed doctrine is a part of the Christian revelation, so 
that if all the philosophers on earth held that it was 
false, I should still believe it. Nevertheless, it has not 
come to that. The philosophy of the nineteenth cen- 
tury has not so far stultified itself as to have accepted 
as certain any principles which would interfere with 
the Blessed Sacrament. It will be the object of the 
next chapter to show that the philosophical ideas on 
which the doctrine proceeds are still perfectly intact. 
The existence of substance has never been disproved. 
The notion of the possibility of the non-extension of 
matter has never been beaten out of the field. The 
course of modern philosophy has been precisely the 
other way. This is a historical fact as capable of proof 
as any other. Let us, then, interrogate the history of 
philosophy, and estimate it not at any particular point, 
but by its drift, and its results. I believe we shall find 
that the philosophy of St. Thomas has not been de- 
stroyed, but only completed where it was imperfect. 



36 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



CHAPTER II. 

MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 

There came a time when a change passed over the 
European mind, the most complete and the most stu- 
pendous that can be imagined. The old Christian 
philosophy of St, Anselm and St. Thomas was destined 
utterly to disappear. It had survived long after the 
whole medieval world had been swept away. It was 
still taught in times when any one who held the politi- 
cal and social ideas of the middle ages would have been 
stared at, as much as a baron of the thirteenth century 
who should rise from his grave and pace the streets in 
armour. Even the Reformation had not destroyed it; 
profoundly as it modified the opinions even of Catholics 
on a host of subjects which were not religious, the 
great revolt of the sixteenth century laid no sacri- 
legious hand on scholastic philosophy. Richelieu, even 
Arnauld and Bossuet, were educated in its principles, 
for they reigned supreme. Nevertheless, during their 
lifetime, a revolution of human thought occurred, the 
most rapid and the most complete that has ever been. 
The philosophy of Descartes supplanted the philosophy 
of the schools. 

It was not so much that one set of opinions had been 
substituted for another, it was rather that the whole 
point of view of mankind had been changed. The 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



37 



cogito ergo sum was the proclamation that henceforth 
mankind was to assume a new starting-point of all 
science; that knowledge was to find its deep founda- 
tions within the spirit's own consciousness. It was the 
very reverse of the fundamental axiom of the schools, 
that the intellect contained nothing which had not pre- 
viously been in the senses, which was their way of 
expressing the objective character of human know- 
ledge.* Even in their ascent to the throne of God, the 
schoolmen made use of the external world. Give me 
the certainty of my own existence alone, and I will 
make out of it the existence of God, was the cry of the 
new philosophy. I have no immediate knowledge, 
said the Cartesian, of anything but of myself and my 
own mental states, nevertheless that is sufficient for me. 
I can spring at once from my own Ego to God. I am 
immediately certain of nothing but my own existence, 
yet that is a stand-point firm enough to enable me to 
overleap the chasm between the Infinite and the Finite. 
In the medieval philosophy of almost every school there 
was a universal realism in the sense that all considered 
the ideas of the mind to be the exact transcript of the 
outward world, just as a mirror represents most faith- 
fully the objects placed before it. The realist thought 
the objects of sense were the image of the universal, 
the nominalist of the particular ; both agree in regard- 
ing the external object as one source of the idea. But 
now all is reversed. The new philosophy starts with 
the assumption that all our clear ideas are true — not 
because they are derived from anything outside us, but 
because the Ego is itself the one basis of certainty. 



* Vide Appendix C, on the Philosophy of St. Thomas. 



38 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



Though the author of the new philosophy thought him- 
self a sincere Catholic, yet it found itself at once, without 
his intending it, in opposition to the Blessed Sacrament. 
Hardly any one of its conclusions but contradicted 
either the dogma itself, or else some of the scholastic 
explanations of it. It is almost the only philosophical 
system in which the Blessed Sacrament is impossible. 
" Give me extension and motion," was the bold cry of 
the new teacher, " and I will create the world." Every 
word of this sentence is a denial of the possibility of the 
Blessed Sacrament. 

First, the system rests on a conception of mind and of 
matter, which casts between them an impassable gulf. 
In the scholastic theory mind and body make up our 
being, and are substantially united to each other. The 
soul furnishes life to flesh and blood, while the senses 
are an auxiliary to the soul in the formation of its ideas. 
On this view it required no such violent stretch of 
thought to conceive a spiritualized body. Substances 
welded together into such perfect unity must have at 
bottom some element in common, and St. Thomas's view 
that matter might assume some of the qualities of spirit, 
was perfectly intelligible. In the system which took its 
place, the two substances — mind and body — stand face 
to face, in utter antagonism the one to the other. The 
essence of mind is thought ; that of matter is extension. 
What point of contact can there be between two things 
so essentially contradictory? They are two worlds, 
utterly distinct, with a bottomless abyss between them ; 
and it requires the strong arm of Omnipotence to force 
them to act, not so much together, as side by side. The 
bold, inexorable logic of the new philosophy strode on 
in its relentless course, creating ruins at every step, and 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



39 



overturning at once the old forms of Grecian thought, 
and the teaching of Christian schools. It conceived 
that it had sounded the very depths of the human soul 
when it affirmed that its substance was Thought. If it 
ceased to think it would cease to be. It must sleep- 
lessly, untiringly, eternally think. It is not so much a 
thinking substance as unceasing thought. All the 
wonders of the human spirit, its strong will, and its 
bursts of passion, are all resolved into various modes of 
thinking; and as unextended thought can have no real 
influence on extended body, our will is not the cause, 
but only the occasion of the movement of the limbs. 
The body was held to be a brute lifeless mechanism, 
and as there were no intermediate existences between 
mind and matter, no gradations in the world of spirit, 
the whole of the brute creation were but wonderfully 
constructed automata. 

I have said that this philosophjr is nearly the only 
one which made the Blessed Sacrament a simple impos- 
sibility. As thought is the substance of the soul, so 
extension is the substance of matter. As the soul, if it 
ceased to think, would be annihilated; so matter, if it 
ceased to be extended, would at once sink into nothing- 
ness. Now, if there be one thing plain about our 
Lord's body in the Blessed Sacrament, it is the fact of 
its being without extension. According to Carte- 
sianism, then, the existence of the adorable Body of 
Jesus in a state of non-extension would be a contradic- 
tion in terms. Moreover, as space or extension and 
body, were in Cartesian language one and the same, the 
existence of the same body in two different places 
became abolutely impossible. 

Something more, however, is wanted to construct 



40 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



the world besides extension. What are all the change- 
ful phenomena of this glorious world, its brilliant 
colours and its graceful shapes, its sweet sounds and 
its breathing odours ? The substance of all things has 
been resolved into extension. What is to become of 
their accidents ? Here, again, unsparing logic sweeps all 
scholastic formulas away. What are all these but mere 
sensations, the result of the mechanical movement of 
these extended masses upon our organs of sense ? 
Thus, all nature, organic and inorganic, teeming earth 
and heaving seas, the powers of light and heat, nay, all 
the phenomena of life, lovely flowers and tall trees of 
tropical forests, birds with their sweet songs and gay 
plumage, beasts with their passionate cries, and all 
nature's living germs, all these are constructed out of 
extension and movement. The new philosophy had 
already fallen foul of the substance of the Blessed 
Sacrament; it now attacks the species. It completes 
its work by destroying the possibility of accidents being 
left after the destruction of the substance, since what 
the schoolmen call by that name were now considered 
as mere affections of our organs of sense, caused by the 
material action of extension and motion. The schools 
had taught the possibility of absolute accidents ; they 
were now even deprived of all possibility of objective 
existence. 

We are not to estimate the danger of the doctrine 
of the Blessed Sacrament by our present notions of the 
falsehood of Cartesianism. Never was intellectual 
revolution so rapidly effected as that by which the 
schoolmen were displaced by the new philosophy. 
Even in the lifetime of its founder, it spread over the 
universities of Protestant Holland and of Catholic 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



41 



Belgium, and had already half converted the greatest 
thinkers of France. It numbered a German princess 
and a Swedish queen among its partizans. After his 
death, its spread was only accelerated. It triumphed 
over the prohibitions of the Papal nuncio, and the uni- 
versity authorities at Louvain. In spite of the power 
of the Sorbonne, and the edicts of an absolute king, it 
spread like wildfire in France. Soon it had over- 
thrown the scholastic philosophy in the schools of every 
religious order, except the Dominicans aud Jesuits.* 
It assumed the cowl of St. Benedict, and girded on the 
cord of the hermits of St. Francis of Paul; Mabillon 
recommended it to the congregation of St. Maur; the 
venerable Cardinal de Berulle bequeathed a respect for 
Descartes as a legacy to the French Oratory ; a canon 
of St. Genevieve pronounced a funeral oration over his 
grave, and Port Royal was Cartesian in spite of the 
opposition of Pascal. Nearly the whole of the march 
of mind, in that age of prodigious intellectual activity, 
took the direction of Cartesian ism. The wit of the 
great satirist of the time was engaged in his defence. 
Cardinal de Retz employed the evening of his stormy 
life in disputing about it in his solitude at Commercy ; 
the great Conde studied it amidst the fountains and 
avenues of Chantilly. Courtiers retired to their coun- 
try-seats to learn it, and women of brilliant talents 

* I have no direct evidence about the Franciscans. If I knew more 
of their writings, I should, doubtless, find them also opposed to Des- 
cartes. As a body, the Jesuits were always against Cartesianism, 
but individual professors were sometimes Cartesians. A touching 
episode in the life of Descartes is his philosophical correspondence 
with a young Jesuit, Father Mesland, who suddenly astonishes him by 
the announcement that he is going to seek for martyrdom in the Cana- 
dian missions. For the Dominicans, vide Goudin, passim. 



42 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



became its advocates. It is impossible to conceive a 
greater danger to the doctrine of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, than the spread of such a philosophy among 
Catholics in that kingdom, which has earned the 
glorious title of the eldest daughter of the Church. 

But no weapon which is formed against it shall 
prosper. Where is Cartesianism now? It has gone 
to its grave with all the old theories of the past. It 
lies in the dust with all its learned professors, its 
brilliant courtiers, and high-born dames. The tri- 
umph of the Blessed Sacrament has been signal and 
complete. 

But the victory of our Blessed Lord is not a mere 
negative triumph. The whole tide of mental science 
on the subject of matter has completely turned against 
Cartesianism, and the history of philosophy is a record 
of the constant recurrence of the view that matter may 
be unextended ; nay, that if it be reduced to its ultimate 
elements, it is without extension. The progress of 
modern thought is thus unconsciously achieving tri- 
umphs for the Blessed Sacrament. It even serves the 
cause of Jesus better than the medieval philosophy, for 
it reduces to a connected system what in St. Thomas 
was an isolated view. His theory of substance, and, 
in general, his teaching on the great miracle of transub- 
stantiation, is one of these many instances in which the 
Catholic dogma enables his genius to burst the tram- 
mels of his imperfect system. Peripatetic philosophy is 
too weak an instrument to bear the glorious weight of 
the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. The march of 
modern metaphysics has not only strewed the field of 
battle with the dead bodies of our enemies ; it has won 
for us points which we can never lose again, and has 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



43 



conquered for us the ground which St. Thomas had 
only boldly overrun. A rapid history of various modern 
theories of matter will, I think, show us that the doc- 
trine of the Blessed Sacrament has not incurred any loss 
by the progress of the science of mind since the time of 
Descartes. 

Never was course more brilliant or more swiftly run 
than that of Cartesian physics. By the end of the 
century in the middle of which Descartes died, all the 
fears which its success had raised in the minds of reli- 
gious men were dissipated, for all that part of Carte- 
sianism which threatened the doctrine of the Blessed 
Sacrament had disappeared, and another doctrine had 
been substituted for it, which we are now to consider. 
Not only is it true that no philosopher of the present 
day looks upon extension as identical with matter ; but 
another theory was started in the seventeenth century, 
and still subsists, which affirms that to be extended is 
not even one of its essential characteristics. It was not 
from Catholic France or from Italy that the man was 
raised up, who was to take up the work which the scho- 
lastic philosophy left unfinished. Leibnitz lived and 
died a Protestant. It was to the rival of Newton in 
mathematics that we owe the metaphysical idea of 
matter which, as we shall see, has still high authorities 
in its favour. 

It is most interesting to watch the course of European 
thought, and it is almost impossible to understand the 
drift of the various theories of which we read in ab- 
stracts of philosophy, unless we know something of their 
history. The origin and the fate of an idea tell us 
more about it than the bare enumeration of doctrines, 
and of the arguments by which they are supported or 



44 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



impugned. A mere statement of a philosophy is mean- 
ingless, if it be taken out of its context in the great 
history of human thought. W e understand an opinion 
when we see it elaborate itself and develop its results in 
inevitable conclusions. The student in philosophy may 
well be excused if he feels a sort of scepticism in his 
own individual arguments, and if he is dazzled and 
bewildered by the tremendous questions around him, 
and the conflicting answers given by the greatest minds ; 
but the case is different when he sees that opinions have 
ever, in the long run, produced certain results. By 
their fruits he knows them. Throw an idea into the 
great logic-mill of the world, and you are sure to find 
out what it is made of. For this reason some have con- 
sidered that history is the best form in which to teach 
philosophy. Abstract thoughts become living in living 
minds. We see them in action, and they cease to be 
words. I should, therefore, despair of making the 
reader understand anything of the opinions which I put 
before him, unless he knew something of their history. 
We must, however, keep clearly in view our one object, 
which is to make out what is the idea of matter and 
substance conveyed by modern philosophy. We shall 
see two things, first, that the witnesses differ so essen- 
tially, that no one idea prevails ; secondly, that amongst 
these various theories there is one extensively held, 
which is most favourable to the Catholic Dogma. If I 
recount one portion of the great mental struggle of the 
last three wonderful centuries, it is to enable us to see how 
it all contributes to the glory of our Lord. It is a fitting 
thing that the Eternal Word should be crowned king 
of the realm of human thought. Let the leaders of 
mental science come forth from their graves, and per- 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



45 



force lay the treasure of their minds down at the feet 
of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 

It is easy to account for the wild -fire spread of 
Cartesianism and its rapid extinction. It was not Car- 
tesianism proper, the doctrine of the formation of the 
universe out of vortices, or of the identity of matter 
and extension, which attracted the attention of man- 
kind: it was the method of Descartes which set all 
Europe wild with joy, as for the invention of a new 
organ of truth. The bold, audacious spirit, who flung 
aside all tradition, started with universal doubt, and 
placed the criterion of certainty in consciousness alone, 
found a response in the tendencies of that generation. 
What was mankind to do now that it was left alone 
face to face with its own consciousness ? With the old 
schoolmen God was the foundation of all science. 
That He was the basis of all truth, was not a piece of 
pious rhetoric, but a scientific axiom. Necessary truth 
is unchangeable, they said, simply on account of His 
immutability. His All-holy Nature is the source of 
morality, His Eternal Word the sanction of certainty. 
Now, however, that Cogito ergo Sum, was proclaimed 
to be the one thing absolutely certain, the whole of 
philosophy could not but be influenced by the change 
of its basis. " I think, therefore, I am," was but a 
slender outfit for the ideal construction of the universe. 
All the secrets of God, all the mysteries of heaven and 
earth, all the depths of our own strange being, were 
to be laid open by this little formula. It was a super- 
human task, worthy of a godlike intellect; for surely 
to bring absolute truth out of absolute doubt, is next 
door to creating the world out of nothing. But the 
human mind is limited, and it might have been pro- 



4G 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



phesied that the success of the enterprise would not 
have been equal to its audacity. Accordingly, since 
that time philosophy has perpetually oscillated between 
a dogmatic Pantheism and a scepticism transcendental 
or empirical. If the human mind is hermetically 
sealed to all except its own states ; if it has no imme- 
diate knowledge of anything but itself; either it is 
itself an absolute source of truth, or it is condemned to 
utter uncertainty, as to the existence or the nature of 
the world around it. In point of fact, all modern sys- 
tems, based on simple psychology, that is, on the mere 
observation of our own minds, take one of these two 
directions, and also take different views of matter. 

These two opposite tendencies had been fully deve- 
loped before the end of the century in which its author 
died. All the conclusions which have reference to our 
present subject had been drawn before Leibnitz closed 
his long career; he, therefore, had them all before him, 
when he put forth that theory of matter which alone 
concerns us in his philosophy. 

A system of Pantheism had already appeared, the 
must fearless and uncompromising that ever was framed 
by man. No doctrine, taught by Hindoo sage on the 
banks of the Ganges, ever involved a stricter absorp- 
tion of all things into the great Oneness of God, than 
that which was now conceived, with all the calmness of 
rigid deduction, amidst the prosaic canals and the frigid 
fogs of Holland. It is true that Spinoza united in 
his veins the fiery blood of the East and of Africa, yet 
no symptom of oriental imagination appears in the rigid 
and unbending logic with which he carries out his 
principles to their utmost conclusions. It was as though 
the God of rabbinical Monotheism and the Allah of 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



47 



Islam had joined their forces against Christendom. 
It was the first proof among many that the Unitarian 
conception of the Deity falls naturally into a negation 
of His personality. Although Descartes professed to 
start with universal doubt, yet he by no means acqui- 
esced in scepticism. There had not yet grown into the 
minds of thinking men that languid inability to believe 
in anything spiritual which characterises them now. 
So many prophets and apostles of philosophy have pro- 
mised the very truth, and have failed, that a melan- 
choly disappointment seems to have seized on the souls 
of men ; they have almost ceased to hope as well as to 
believe. But in the times of which we write, the 
modern world was yet young; men believed in their 
own metaphysical doctrines. Accordingly, the famous 
axiom of Descartes was meant to be the intellectual 
basis of a system which was to explain the universe. 
After having stripped himself of all immediate know- 
ledge but that of self, he meant that Ego of his to be an 
absolute source of truth. As, however, his mind might 
play him false and substitute error for fact, it was 
necessary to discover a criterion to distinguish true 
ideas from illusions, and this he placed in the quality of 
clearness. His organ of truth might, therefore, be 
stated thus : whatever ideas are clear and distinct are 
true, and represent real objects. He thus preserved in 
his system all those truths which are now called neces- 
sary, and which he considered as clearly conveyed in 
his consciousness; and amongst other views of this 
class he adopted St. Anselm's a priori demonstration of 
the existence of God. Having, however, already laid 
down that " cogito ergo sum" is the only certain axiom; 
in other words, having circumscribed our intuitions to 



48 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



that one, lie had deprived himself of the right of invo- 
king the intuitive faculty for any other truth. He did 
not see that by assuming the intuition of the existence 
of self as his sole starting-point, he had deprived neces- 
sary truths of all ontological value, or else had laid the 
basis of a Pantheism, which was actually the first 
development of his system. Unhappy Frankenstein ! 
he had, with vast toil, given life and animation, in the 
person of Spinoza, to a being who was destined to 
work fearful havoc with all that he held dear. 

You have assumed, thus Spinoza argued, the fact of 
consciousness to be the one great incontrovertible fact, 
the one basis of all certainty ; but you have assumed or 
certainly included in it far more than it warrants. 
Consciousness is but a series of states, varying thoughts, 
feelings, affections. What is the unity which binds 
together all this ever-varvino- succession? The pheno- 
mena of spirit are far more shifting than the perpetual 
flux of matter; thoughts change every instant; moods 
of mind are ever succeeding one another; what is the 
subject of them all, the unknown substance out of 
which they severally spring? You assume that your 
soul is an independent substance out of many others 
equally one, indivisible, independent; but this is an in- 
ference, not contained in your consciousness, nor by 
any means certain, for another hypothesis is possible, 
namely, that of one substance, one single Ego, for all 
thinking beings. 

But this is not all. You have divided the world into 
two perfectly distinct classes — Thought and Extension. 
Thought is the attribute of spirit; extension of matter. 
You have confessedly on your principles exhausted 
all that can be known of matter, when you say it is 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



49 



extension. You must, however, go one step further 
in the analysis before you have done. Extension 
cannot stand by itself ; it must be the attribute of sub- 
stance. Here then again the question occurs, what are 
all these numberless phenomena of extension which we 
see around us, all the varying objects of the external 
world which strike our senses? Are they to be assigned 
to several separate substances, or are they all emanations 
from some one great substance? 

Let us consult the idea of substance within us, and 
we shall at once be able to solve the question. It is 
involved in the very definition of substance, that it 
should be independent and alone. It is that which 
stands by itself. No substance, therefore, can be 
created, for if created, it is absolutely dependent on its 
creator, which dependence is utterly contrary to the 
idea of substance. There is, then, but one great all-em- 
bracing substance, and that is God. This, then, is the 
great key to the universe. We now see down clear into 
the very depths of the ocean of being. God is the one 
great existence of which thought and extension are both 
modifications. He is the only thinking being of which 
all thoughts are the stirrings and the living actions. 
My finite ideas are only the self-limitations of the In- 
finite. The ideas in our bosoms are but the thoughts 
of God thinking in us. In like manner all material 
things are modifications of His substance. All the 
vitality of animals, all the beauty of material things, is 
not so much an emanation from Him, as one side of His 
life, showing itself in the form of matter, His attribute 
of extension developing itself in extended things. 

Such was the system of Spinoza. Strange and mon- 
strous development of modern philosophy not fifty years 

E 



50 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



after its birth ! At one fell swoop it has alike destroyed 
the spirituality of God and the responsibility of man. 
It had brought back all the moral chaos of Gnosticism, 
clothed in the cold precision of European logic. It had 
even destroyed far more truth than the early Christian 
heresies, for they had at least preserved, though they 
corrupted, the notion of sin, and of redemption; while 
Spinoza had rendered any real idea of duty impossible. 
But the strangest portion of the system is that which 
concerns us most. The Cartesian views of the identity 
of matter and extension had issued into a doctrine which 
placed extension on the throne of God. 

Europe, however, was not prepared for such bold 
Pantheism as this. There arose another form of modern 
philosophy, which has met with a very different fate 
from Spinoza's. Born in England in the same year as 
Spinoza was born in Holland, Locke was the author of 
a philosophy peculiarly sober and English in its character. 
It w T as rejected, indeed, at Oxford, which burned one of 
its author's books by the hand of the common hangman ; 
yet its principles helped to dethrone the house of 
Stuart, and to secure the crown to that of Hanover. It 
took a strange possession of the intellect of France; 
and a system which saw the light in London passed, 
through the developments of Voltaire and Condillac, 
into the mind of Europe. Its history is that of an im- 
portant phase of European thought, and we must trace 
its briefly-run career. 

Descartes had been the first explicitly to lay down 
consciousness as the only source of our knowledge, but 
he had mingled elements with it of which Spinoza has 
made the use which we have seen. He had reckoned 
necessary truths as a part of our consciousness, and had 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



51 



thus laid the foundation for the possibility of a dog- 
matic system, however inconsistent with his first prin- 
ciple. Locke was destined to develop what we may 
call the sceptical side of psychology. It was precisely 
this last shred of objectiveness in the system of Des- 
cartes which Locke disputed. 

He might have denied the " innateness " of necessary 
truth, without destroying their necessity; for it is 
possible to hold that truths are not born with us, and 
yet that they come from a source other than our- 
selves. But he went farther than this; he denied 
to the mind any faculty of intuition,* and conse- 
quently, all immediate knowledge, except that of its 
own sense-preceptions and its own ideas, derived from 
reflection on them. We have but two possible sources 
of knowledge, he said ; sensations and the reflections 
on them, proceeding from the internal operations of 
our minds. Thus the human intellect is only imme- 
diately cognizant of impressions on the senses and of 
its own states. According to him, the mind can only 
look on ideas, not on things. It follows from this that 
all our knowledge is purely relative, or, as we should 
now say, subjective, and that, for ought we know, the 
external world in no way whatsoever corresponds to 
the ideas which we form of it. Nor was this an in- 
ference which he left to be drawn by others. From 
the fact that all our sensations are affections of our own 
organism, are really ourselves affected in a certain way, 

* By an intuition I mean " a native conviction of a truth, not derived 
from abstraction nor obtained by inference ; or, " an original precep- 
tion, looking immediately on the object or truth." Vide Appendix C. 
In this sense it is usea hy Father Ravignan. Conferences, Tom. i., 
387. 



52 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



he concluded that the sensible qualities of external 
objects were no index whatsoever of the reality. He 
accounted for our feelings by supposing that God had 
arbitrarily attached certain notions to particular impres- 
sions felt in our bodies, though those ideas of course 
proved nothing as to the object itself. Colour, taste, 
and smell are in us, not in the things themselves, and 
could not therefore inform us of any objective truth; 
while, on the other hand, as the mind has no faculties 
beyond sensation and reflection, he denied the very 
existence of the idea of substance. What the school- 
men had called substance, according to Locke, was a 
mere name invented by mankind for their own conve- 
nience, without any reality corresponding to it even in 
our minds. 

In one respect Locke permitted light to creep into 
the Egyptian darkness of our ignorance of realities. 
While he held that the secondary qualities of objects 
had no resemblance to outward things, he allowed that 
what he called the primary qualities of matter, such as 
extension and solidity, represented an external reality, 
which existed in the things themselves. Though, 
therefore, he would deny that extension was identical 
with matter, yet he would consider it to be one of its 
essential characteristics. But it was in vain to stem the 
torrent of scepticism. It is useless to leave a premise 
suspended in mid-air without, drawing its conclusion. 
Some bolder thinker is sure to complete your work. 
In this case an Irish bishop and a Scotch laird carried 
on what the English philosopher had left imperfect. 
Berkeley soon showed that extension must share the 
fate of taste and colour. The mighty flood which 
Locke had let loose soon swept away the external 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 53 



world in spite of his feeble protest. If we have no 
knowledge of anything beyond our own sensations and 
mental states, what right have we to suppose the 
existence of matter or substance at all? Matter is 
certainly not a thing seen, heard, or felt. Its existence 
is an inference of our intellect, the necessity of which 
Berkeley could not see. The existence of God, pro- 
ducing in our minds certain impressions, he argued, is 
quite sufficient to account for all phenomena, without 
having recourse to the clumsy hypothesis of a material 
world, involving, as it does, the awkward duality of 
spirit and matter. Nor was this all; a deeper depth 
still yawns below. You have lost all right, says Hume, 
to infer the existence of substance, for if we know it to 
exist at all, it can only be by virtue of the truth, that 
every effect must have its cause. But you have already 
denied the validity of necessary truths. All our know- 
ledge, you say, is derived from experience; but the 
idea of cause is one which experience cannot originate. 
It can only furnish us with sequences of events, not 
with causes. Experience can* tell us that one thing in- 
variably follows another: it cannot assure us that one 
thing is the cause of another. To convert succession 
into causal dependence, you must first have established 
it as a necessary truth, that no event can be without a 
cause. It is too late, however, to invoke a principle, of 
the truth of which neither sensation nor reflection can 
inform you. Yet it is upon that principle that sub- 
stance, and consequently the existence of both spirit 
and matter, depends. 

O most lame and impotent conclusion of years of 
mental toil and suffering ! It had been better for 
mankind to have kept the old and simple faith, rather 



54 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



than, after the long tossings of anxious thought, to 
have come to the conclusion that no harbour was to be 
found. Who would venture again upon the wide 
ocean of speculation, where the most gifted men have 
already made shipwreck? So momentous, however, 
are the questions involved in mental philosophy, that 
though it has often been prophesied that past failures 
would warn men off from enterprises so perilous and so 
fruitless ; yet men are ever found to step into the places 
of those who have fallen, and to lead once more the 
forlorn hope of metaphysics. 

It is no wonder that Leibnitz, with so many failures 
before him,* conceived that the initial principle of 
modern philosophy was wrong, and longed to retrace 
his way to the old paths which men had deserted.f 

It was evident that there was something wanting in 
the new system. With self-consciousness alone, expe- 
rience had proved that it was impossible to give an 
objective character to the ideas either of substance or 
matter. But these ideas, banished from, or sorely im- 
perilled by metaphysics, had taken refuge in physical 
science. It repudiated the notion of discovering the 
essence of things, and modestly contented itself with 
laws; yet its own splendid achievements in the know- 
ledge of nature rendered the idea of an external 
reality, that is, of a substance, to be the cause of phe- 
nomena, fully as necessary to modern physics as to the 
schoolmen. The chemist, for instance, who was able so 

* Leibnitz was aware of Berkeley's opinion, and refers to it. Ed. 
Erdman, 726. 

t I am not inventing feelings for Leibnitz. See his letter to F. 
Bouvet, p. 146, and the still more remarkable paper, "De vera 
methodo philosophise et theologise," p. 109, Ed. Erdman. 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



55 



totally to change all the qualities of an object before 
him, was forced to conclude that he was operating on 
something which remained the same under all the won- 
derful changes ; in other words, on a substance. Nor 
were physical philosophers disposed to deny it. In 
point of fact, the modern conception of matter in- 
volves the old idea of substance. The very words are 
often interchanged.* Matter means the real external 
thins; which remains the same under all changes of 
phenomena, and out of which they are all educed; and 
what is that but substance ? Nor let it be forgotten, 
that matter thus conceived is far more substantial than 
the materia of the schoolmen, which was a mere meta- 
physical abstraction, a potentiality without any reality. 
While in St. Thomas the sensible qualities were the 
results of the forms, substantial or accidental, not of 
the matter; according to the present views of scientific 
men, all these marvellous phenomena are attributed to 
the matter or substance, and are drawn out of its latent 
powers. Yet while natural philosophers so eagerly called 
on mental science to prove for them the existence of 
substance, which was beyond their province, though 
assumed by them, yet all the efforts of psychology had 
as yet been impotent to produce the desired result. 
The attempt to construct a system upon the metaphy- 
sical idea of substance, had ended in Pantheism, when 
its reality was assumed. On the other hand, when the 
reality of substance was denied by Locke, the attempt to 

* " Substance or matter, that is to say, the insensible subtratum of 
sensible qualities, viewed by itself, apart from these attributes by 
which it is made known to experience." Mansell's Metaphysics, 
p. 327. The words also are perpetually interchanged in Whewell's 
Philosophy of Inductive Sciences, Book 6, chapter 3. 



56 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



make extension identical with or essential to matter, had 
issued in scepticism, that is, in the denial of the cer- 
tainty of an external world. Spinoza had taken the 
purely ideal element in extension, and had identified it 
with God. Locke had eliminated from it all that could 
not be derived from sensation, and the outward uni- 
verse had melted in his grasp. It was for these reasons 
that Leibnitz framed the system which identifies the 
idea of substance with another which is every day 
assuming a greater importance in physical science — the 
idea of Force. 

He began by laying down a starting point, the very 
opposite to that of Descartes. Man, he would say, has 
an immediate knowledge of more than his own Ego. 
The mind of man possesses faculties by which it 
knows not only the appearances of things, but can 
affirm the nature and existence of substance, for God 
has given to it a power of intuition, by which it is im- 
mediately cognizant, not only of its own being and its 
various states, but of truths which are prior to expe- 
rience. Otherwise you can attain to no certainty of 
anything. It is useless to attempt to base the real on 
the phenomenal. Y"ou have tried in vain to extract 
objective truth alternately from the phenomena of the 
senses and the phenomena of the soul, and you have 
failed. It requires an immediate knowledge of some- 
thing more than our own mental states, or our own 
sensations, to obtain a view of any substance material 
or spiritual. If we have no faculty of intuition, ena- 
bling us to gaze immediately on truths which are out- 
side the sphere of our own being, we are condemned 
to an eternal ignorance of anything beyond ourselves. 
Now, that the human soul possesses such a faculty is 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



57 



a fact, because it knows some truths which are not in- 
ferred from experience, and the germs, at least, of which 
are not deducted by reasoning at all. Take, for instance, 
the principle of contradiction; it is impossible that a 
thing should be and not be at the same time. Prior to 
all experience this principle comes upon our soul like 
a light illuminating its darkness. We conceive it to be 
true in such a sense that we cannot physically conceive 
it to be untrue. We look upon it as a truth universal, 
necessary, eternal. And in this truth or law many 
ideas are involved, being, possibility, necessity, identity. 
Of the same kind are all moral truths, imperative, ab- 
solute, unchangeable, unlimited, and illimitable, beyond 
all space and time. Or, take again mathematical truths, 
we are compelled to look upon them as absolutely true, 
and with them we conceive the idea of infinite space, a 
conception as strange as it is irresistible. 

The principles on which these truths rest cannot be 
gained by reasoning from data furnished by experience. 
There they are in the soul, and no one doubts their 
validity. Whence come they, and how do we know 
them to be true? Not from sense, or reflection on 
sense, for by no process of reasoning can they be ex- 
tracted from sensible things. Nor can they spring out 
of human thought* alone, on pain of being considered 
as mere forms of the human intellect, and therefore 
only as relatively true. Their universality and neces- 
sity prove that they are not the creation of the mind 
reflecting on itself. If, however, these ideas neither 
come from sense, nor are produced by the deductive 
power of the intellect, they must be perceived by a higher 

* Thought is here used for the German Denken, the faculty which 
has for its peculiar object general notions or conceptions. 



58 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



faculty, before which they present themselves with a 
light, which carries with it its own evidence. The mind 
must possess intellectual eyesight wherewith to see 
them, and the truths themselves must come before it 
from without. All this implies a faculty of intuition 
by which the mind sees them immediately. 

Among the various hypotheses framed to account for 
the mode in which necessary truths present themselves 
to our intuition, Leibnitz chose that which holds that 
God implanted them in our souls in the act of our crea- 
tion. It is false, then, that the whole ground of cer- 
tainty is, u I think, therefore I am." I am immediately 
certain of more than my own mental states. There are 
truths of which I am as certain as of my own exis- 
tence, and of which I am cognizant immediately and 
directly. 

Moreover, they point to something far beyond them- 
selves. I am irresistibly compelled to believe that even 
if I did not see them these truths would still exist. 
They are eternal truths. They have, therefore, an 
existence above and beyond my little self. If they have 
ever been true, they must have a source which is eter- 
nal ; if they are necessary they must have a home other 
than my contingent being. They prove that my intui- 
tion reaches beyond my own finite Ego. The moral law, 
for instance, must have a sanction and a foundation 
other than the fact that I think it. I hear a voice 
within my heart, crying out to me: " There are things 
which it is wrong for thee to do." If I rise up and 
ask: who speaks? and the only answer which I can 
return is, it is I speaking to myself, then my reason 
revolts at the monstrous opposition between the terrible 
authoritatlveness of the voice, and the slender right of 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



59 



the speaker. The intuitions, therefore, of moral truths 
do not spring out of the intuition of self. 

But these are not the only truths of which, according 
to the same authority, we have, in some sense, an imme- 
diate* knowledge. Among the truths the knowledge of 
which is excited in us by a primitive law of our minds, 
is one which is not necessary to the certainty of many 
others, and is even known, subsequently to them, yet 
which, when once recognised, throws a vast light upon 
them ; I mean the truth of the existence of God. 

It was not an invention of Leibnitz, but an old tra- 
dition of a great school of Christian philosophy, that 
the human spirit has an intuition of this great truth.f 
I look into my own soul, and I stand face to face with 
the idea of the Infinite; and analysing it, I see that 
no possible accumulation of finite things could make up 
that great whole, where I can trace no part and no 
division. Whence comes this marvellous idea into my 
soul? It can be no deduction from the facts of my 
bounded consciousness. It must arise directly from a 
faculty implanted by the great God Himself in whom 
" we live, and move, and be." That most marvellous 
conception of Infinity can be no abstraction from con- 
tingent existences; it can only be an intuitive belief, 
elicited by a native power of the soul, which enables 
it to see a truth, of which it feels at the same time that 
it has no adequate conception. 

All these are instances of truths of which we have 
an immediate knowledge. A number of separate intui- 

* By immediate, here and everywhere else, is meant non-inferential. 
Of course, it is not denied that there is also an a posteriori proof of 
the existence of God. 

f For some instances of such views, vide Appendix D. 



60 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



tions illuminate the mind, among which is that of the 
truth of the existence of God; and when this is appre- 
hended, at once by a natural synthesis, all truth groups 
itself around it. We now see the reason of the marvellous 
certainty and necessity of truth, for it is fundamentally 
identical with God. We bow down in willing adoration 
before the imperiousness of the moral law, when once 
we see that the idea of duty is founded on the sove- 
reign rights of God. 

On this principle, that the human mind has other in- 
tuitions besides that of the existence of self, Leibnitz 
was able to construct the theory of substance, which 
he substituted for that which I have already described. 
Having established the existence of primary truths, and 
also vindicated to the mind the power of intuition, he 
could now assume the reality of substance, which had 
been so sadly imperilled by the philosophy of experience. 

Unless it were by virtue of a primitive law of our 
minds, it would be impossible for us to conceive the 
idea of substance.* Sense and experience could never 
furnish us with it; they only tell us of phenomena, 
while substance is precisely that which lies underneath 
the appearances presented to sight, hearing, and touch. 
It is another shape of the intuition of cause, since it 
stands to the phenomena in the relation of cause to 
effect. In claiming, therefore, for the soul powers 
beyond experience, Leibnitz vindicated the validity of 
the idea of substance. At the same time he defended, 
far better than the schoolmen had done, the famous 

* " Locke has not observed that the notions of being, of substance, 
of one and the same, of the true, of the good, and many others, are 
innate to our minds." Leibnitz, ap. Sir William Hamilton. Meta- 
physics, vol., 2, p. 353. 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



61 



axiom of St. Thomas, that u substance is discerned by 
the intellect alone, and not by sense." In the scholastic 
system this was an isolated truth, which had lost its way 
into a philosophy which was founded on the principle, 
that there was nothing in the intellect which had not 
previously been in the senses. Now, however, that it 
was proved that the soul has powers above sense and 
experience, all inconsistency was removed. It showed 
also how wisely St. Thomas had silenced all who 
appealed to the evidence of sense against the existence 
of the Body and Blood of Jesus in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. It took the question at once out of the jurisdic- 
tion of sense into the tribunal of intellect. Even laying 
the supernatural aside, sense can only tell us that the 
colour, taste, and smell of bread are there, which 
no one denies. It cannot inform us that the sub- 
stance of bread lies under those appearances, since it 
knows nothing of substance at all. That these qualities 
are produced by a hidden substance, is a truth furnished 
by the intellect, and of which sense knows nothing. It 
is folly, therefore, to appeal to the five senses to prove 
that the substance of bread lies there after the conse- 
cration, since even before the miracle they were incom- 
petent to prove it. In fact they say nothing about the 
matter at all. Even in the natural order of things, 
they are mute, if you interrogate them as to what sub- 
stance lies beneath the appearances with which they 
have to do ; in vain then would you invoke their testi- 
mony now that the supernatural has come in. 

Leibnitz had done much in thus placing the idea of 
substance on its right basis. Let us now pass on to that 
which concerns us more, — his views of the ultimate 
composition of matter. 



62 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



The idea of matter had given as much trouble to the 
world as that of substance. In point of fact the two are 
most closely connected. To enquire what is matter 
is really to ask, what is material substance ? for matter, 
like substance, is the hidden object which is the cause 
of all phenomena affecting the senses, just as the soul is 
the object from which issue our several spiritual states. 
It is the external reality which is inferred by the mind 
to be the cause of impressions made upon the sense. 
Its existence is, therefore, nearly as little an object of 
experience, as much a product of the mind as that of 
substance. In analysing the idea of matter we per- 
force arrive at elements not derived from experience. 
Hence the failure of all attempts to explain it empi- 
rically. Descartes had indentified it with extension, 
and Spinoza was the result. The attempt to make 
extension at least essential to it had produced idealism. 
The warning of the past was not lost upon Leibnitz, 
and instead of looking upon matter as a collection of 
extended atoms or molecules, he defined its ultimate 
elements to be simple, unextended forces. We can 
without any stretch of imagination fancy him speaking 
thus: Take any material substance in God's beautiful 
world, tree, flower, gem, or what you will. We know 
it is compounded; what are its ultimate elements? 
It is composed of extended atoms, says the Cartesian. 
But here surely is a contradiction in terms. If it is 
extended, it is divisible; how then can it be ultimate? 
how can it be an atom, that is indivisible? Drop, then, 
the useless, unintelligible atoms. Make each body to be 
a collection of forces, without extension, and all con- 
tradiction vanishes. With these alone you can construct 
the universe. Instead of the dull, dead molecules, 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



63 



passively acted upon by movement, that is, by a uni- 
form mechanical power external to them, each body in 
the world is made up of an infinite number of active, 
energetic powers, producing all the endless changes of 
the universe ; all its ceaseless alterations of generation 
and decay. Each one of these forces educes, out of its 
own energy, the whole of its future changes to the end 
of time, and contains them all within itself, without 
borrowing from any other. The phenomena of the 
world are the result of the united action of the whole. 
They produce effects which impress upon our senses 
the feelings of resistance, colour, and the other pheno- 
mena which we call extension, solidity, and the various 
qualities assigned to bodies. These active forces work 
behind the great waving, many- coloured curtain of 
appearances. They weave and unweave the veil by 
which they are half-hidden, half-revealed. And if any 
one asks me how these heterogeneous forces, each 
holding independently its fated way, can so act together, 
so as to form those bodies, I can only point to their 
Omnipotent Creator. Matter is unintelligible without 
creation. The energy of God's creative act still lasts 
within them. Then God bestowed upon them the power 
of being separate causes, and ever-active substances. 
Then, by a pre-established harmony He contrived their 
future operations, so that they should all precisely cor- 
respond with each other, and act in unison, so as to 
produce upon our senses those united appearances. 
Thus His glorious world is no dead mechanism, but it 
is the result of living powers, each pursuing the end 
assigned to it in its creation, yet forming separate 
groups of forces, as His wisdom has chosen that they 
should act together according to His divine ideas. 



64 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



Nor again, when we speak of phenomena or appear- 
ances, let us suppose that they are such, in the sense 
that they are unreal. They are not unsubstantial like 
dreams, or the phantoms of our imagination. They 
are positive effects upon our senses, caused by contact 
with these numberless forces of nature. Relatively 
true indeed they are, not absolutely, for they are the 
joint effect of the objects without us, and of our organ- 
ism, and therefore only represent them as they appear 
to us, not as they are in themselves, yet inasmuch as 
they are really produced by them, they convey to us a 
true idea, though an imperfect one. They are God's 
signs by which He teaches the knowledge of His world, 
but though signs, they are not arbitrary. Rather they 
are the beautiful music by which the sensible universe 
sheds upon the soul marvellous impressions far beyond 
itself, and lets us into the mystery of God's ideas when 
He created the world. 

It was by this reference to God that Leibnitz 
explained other questions connected with matter. A 
very nominalist when he seems to deny reality to all 
but simple substances, he yet saw in the essence of 
genera and species real relations, which, though per- 
ceived by the mind alone, corresponded to the idea 
which God formed before He created them. In the 
same way he explained the contradictions in our idea 
of space, the strange mixture which it contains of the 
absolute and relative, of the boundless and the finite. 
He looks upon space itself as being simply the relation 
between coexisting things. At the same time, the mind 
having a previous intuition of God and His attributes, 
and catching sight of His Immensity and Omnipotence, 
sees at once the unbounded possibility of new creations, 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



65 



and the absolute necessity of their being enclosed 
within His infinite sphere. 

Such was the theory of matter which, after the 
terrible travails of the seventeenth century, was taught 
at the end of it. We may consider it as the deliberate 
homage of a German Protestant to the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. Let us now see how marvellously it completes 
the idea of St. Thomas, and fits into his teaching about 
this great doctrine. 

In the nineteenth century nothing is so common as 
the rejection of the dogma of the Holy Eucharist. 
Who has not often heard the contempt with which 
men turn away from the very notion of Transubstantia- 
tion, on the ground of its absolute impossibility? It is 
a contradiction in terms, they say, and God Himself 
could neither change the substance of bread into the 
substance of the Body of Jesus, nor leave the accidents 
when the reality of bread is gone, nor cause the Body 
of our Lord to be in many places at once. Blessed be 
God, simple souls revolt at once from the blasphemy 
of setting bounds to His Omnipotence. For them it is 
enough to say that God can do all things; but for 
others it is simply an act of charity to show that the 
objection is as stupid as it is blasphemous. While shal- 
low men sneer at the glorious doctrine, on the ground 
of their knowing perfectly all about matter and 
space, the history of philosophy has shown us the 
master-minds of a whole century occupied in fathom- 
ing the depths of the subject, and successively failing; 
till, at last, at the close of the century, we have wit- 
nessed the spread of a theory as simple as it was 
favourable to the doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. 
St. Thomas had grounded the doctrine on the idea that 



66 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



substance is not to be discovered by the senses, but is 
the object of the intellect alone. It is absurd to argue 
that our senses tell us that that object before us is 
bread, and that nothing can stand against the evidence 
of sense. St. Thomas had shown us that the senses tell 
us nothing whatsoever about the substance of bread, 
and that, therefore, they are not competent witnesses. 
Modern philosophy corroborates St. Thomas by estab- 
lishino; that the idea of substance comes not from 
experience, but from intuition. St. Thomas had said 
that the accidents were separable from the substance, 
and therefore, that God could leave the colour and'v 
taste of bread after the reality was gone. In the lan- 
guage of science, the accidents are now called pheno- 
mena or appearances, and it considers them to be, not 
the substance itself, but the effect of its active forces 
on our organs. Who will deny that Gocl can cause 
these effects to continue when the force itself is gone ? 
It is a miracle, but who will dare to place it beyond 
His power? St. Thomas had said that the Body of 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament is beyond the ordi- 
nary laws of space, so that it can be whole and entire 
on tens of thousands of altars at once. According to 
modern philosophy, so far is it from being certain that 
matter is identical with extension, that, on the con- 
trary, its ultimate elements are by many held to be 
unextended, and bodies to be made up of unextended 
forces; in other words, it is no more a contradiction in 
terms, that a body should be in many places, than that 
a soul shall be whole and entire in each particle of the 
body. Furthermore, such a definition of space is given 
as shows it to be relative, so that philosophy here also 
completes the ideas of the schoolmen, and proves that 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



67 



space is not the inexorable, absolute thing which men 
have put beyond the power of God. 

This, then, on Leibnitzian principles, we may say to 
our opponents. By what right do you make extension 
so necessary to the conception of body that God Him- 
self cannot make it unextended? If you mean by ex- 
tension the sensation conveyed by the eye or the touch, 
then why is it less subjective than colour or taste? 
The only difference between it and other phenomena 
lies in this, that while other qualities may be absent, 
extension, as far as our experience goes, is always pre- 
sent. We have known bodies to be scentless, tasteless, 
colourless; we have never known them to be unex- 
tended. But this only proves that we can neither ima- 
gine nor represent to ourselves an unextended body ; 
it does not prove the thing to be impossible to the 
power of God. If, on the other hand, we turn to the 
ideal order, and analyse the conception of body, we 
find something left to constitute a bodily thing even 
when extension is removed. The external world will 
not disappear if we abstract extension, for force will 
still remain, out of which to construct the universe. 
If God were to destroy phenomenal extension, and 
place a body in a sphere beyond the ken of sense, there 
would still remain the multiplicity of forces, and their 
various relations to each other, which to eye and touch 
take the shape of form and figure, and which constitute 
the reality of wmich extension is the phenomenon. We 
may not be able to conceive what an unextended sub- 
stance would be like, but we can conceive it to be pos- 
sible. 

But has not Leibnitz disappeared with Descartes and 
Spinoza? The course of time has rolled on, and no 



(58 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



one now believes in the theory of monads or in pre- 
established harmony. His celebrated system has been 
buried in the grave of all metaphysics, and mankind has 
now turned away from the barren speculations of mental 
philosophy to the boundless treasures of physical science. 

Such is the objection which I hear raised to the 
whole course of my argument. Yet, strange to say, it 
is to physical science itself that I appeal to bear witness 
to the theory of unextended matter. At this day, 
some of the greatest names in various departments of 
science, hold the view that the ultimate particles of 
matter are unextended. Thus they agree with the 
views of Leibnitz, cleared of his doctrine of monads. 
Here is a marvel on which we had not calculated ; what 
a subtle thinker had hesitatingly put forth has found 
advocates among the philosophers who have to deal 
with the facts of nature. So far from considering the 
reality of the external world to be imperilled, they 
unite in considering that force without extension is 
sufficient to account for all the phenomena of sensation, 
and to form a basis for the certainty of science. A 
few facts will prove my assertion* 

In 1844 a pamphlet was published in Paris by M. de 
St. Venant, a distinguished engineer, showing, on ma- 
thematical grounds, the impossibility of the ordinary 
view that matter is composed of extended atoms. The 
author goes back to a theory proposed fifty years after 
the death of Leibnitz, by a distinguished Jesuit mathe- 
matician, which he thus states: " I conclude, then, that 
we must abandon the notion of a mass of continuous 
matter, and that it is best to look upon the ultimate 
particles of bodies as separate points without extension, 
as centres of action for forces of repulsion and attrac- 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



69 



tion ? by which alone, after all, bodies operate and mani- 
fest their existence."* He quotes Dugald Stewart and 
Sir James Macintosh in favour of the Jesuit mathema- 
tician, but at this moment we have done with metaphy- 
sics, and I prefer to point to the great names of Ampere 
and Cauchy as doing homage to this important theory. 
The latter expressly taught the non-extension of atoms 
from his professorial chair at Turin. If we turn from 
mathematicians to the physical sciences, we find the 
idea of the non-extension of matter still more vigorous 
and full of life. In a paper published by M. Cruveil- 
hier, an eminent Parisian physician, he ascribes the 
whole of the success of a certain class of sciences to the 
prevalence of Leibnitz's views of force, which, con- 
sciously or unconsciously, he considers to be in the 
minds of modern scientific men. After describing the 
system of monads, and the method formed upon it, he 
adds: " Such is the method which is accepted and ap- 
plied by all great modern naturalists with such success 
to biological science. The progress of these sciences 
began with Leibnitz. Under its influence chemistry 

* I need not say that F. Boscovich's theory differs in many circum- 
stances from that of Leibnitz. His points are not like Leibnitz's 
monads, infinite in number. It is quite sufficient for our purpose, 
however, that they should agree in the one essential particular of the 
non -extension of matter. From this it follows that extension is not 
essential to material things ; or, in the words of the paper which I 
have quoted : " II n'y a aucune connexion necessaire entre Tidee 
d'existence meme materielle, et l'idee d'etendue et Ton n'est point 
oblige logiquement d'accorder des dimensions a un etre pour qu'il puisse 
servir de support a des proprietes ou se trouver sous l'empire de lois 
quelconques." It is remarkable that that great Society which repre- 
sents the conservative party in the Church should, in the exact science 
of mathematics, be the parent of a theory which implies almost as 
revolutionary a view of matter as does idealism in metaphysics. 



70 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



was created by the labours and discoveries of Stahl, 
Priestly, the illustrious Lavoisier, and his disciples ; com- 
parative anatomy by Duverney, Cheselden, Monro, 
Reaumer, Campe; natural systems of classification by 
Linnseus, Buffon, and Jussieu; lastly, philosophical 
anatomy and general zoology by a number of savants, 
the most illustrious of whom were Goethe, Cuvier, and 
Geoffroy St. Hilaire." 

But the most remarkable testimony to the view here 
maintained is that of an illustrious Englishman, Pro- 
fessor Faraday. In January, 1844, M. cle St. Venant 
read the memoir which I have quoted before the So- 
ciete Philomatique of Paris. In February, by a singu- 
lar coincidence, our great chemist published in the 
Philosophical Magazine a paper on the Nature of Mat- 
ter, containing the same views on different grounds. 
He first states the ordinary view of matter to be that it 
is composed of atoms, that is, of little, unchangeable, 
impenetrable pieces of matter, each with an atmosphere 
of force grouped around it. He then continues : a To 
my mind this nucleus vanishes, and the substance con- 
sists of the powers. And, indeed, what notion can we 
form of the nucleus independent of its powers? All 
our preception and knowledge of the atom, and even 
our fancy, is limited to ideas of its powers; what 
thought remains on which to hang the imagination of 
an atom independent of its acknowledged forces? A 
mind just entering on the subject may consider it diffi- 
cult to think of powers of matter independent of a 
separate something to be called the matter, but it is 
certainly far more difficult and indeed impossible, to 
think of or imagine that matter independent of the 
powers. Now the powers we know and recognise in 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



71 



every phenomenon of the creation, the abstract matter 
in none: why then assume the existence of that of 
which we are ignorant, which we cannot conceive, and 
for which there is no philosophical necessity?" 

A more explicit testimony is not wanted else I might 
go on to quote such an authority* as the Master of 
Trinity, saying, that this view of matter is " a consis- 
tent theory, and probably may be used as an instrument 
for investigating and expressing true laws of nature.'' 
Again, the common definition of body in modern 
treatises on mechanics is " that which affects the senses," 
and this in reality attributes force to bodies as their 
essential property. The prevalence of the doctrine 
which calls in imperishable ether to account for the 
existence of light, proves that natural philosophers find 
the ordinary view of matter inadequate to explain the 
phenomena of the universe. Evidences are to be found 
on every side of the wide spread of views even more 
definite than these, and of the hold which the theory of 
the essential non- extension of matter is taking on the 
minds of men. If we turn to Denmark, we find the 
discoverer of electro-magnetism declaring that bodies 
are " spaces filled with active powers." Cambridge 
has produced a very recent work, in which a whole 
system of physics is founded on the principle that " the 
simplest view of matter, derived at once from the law of 
gravitation, is that it consists of monads, or moveable 
centres of force, unextended, but definite in position, 
which attract each other with a force varying inversely 
as the square of the distance between the centres."! As 
if this long list was not enough to assure us of the 

* " Philosophy of Inductive Sciences," Book vi, 5. 
f Birkes ou " Matter and Ether." 



72 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



overwhelming tendencies of science towards the view 
that matter is nothing but unextended force, I can 
quote the prophecy of a most unexceptionable witness, 
that "at present it seems more likely that attraction 
will drive out matter, by and with the aid of repulsion. 
The current of physical philosophy sets towards Priestly's 
notion, that an atom is but a centre of attraction and 
repulsion."* 

Once more, what right have men to reject the 
doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament on the ground that 
extension is necessary to the idea of matter, and, conse- 
quently, that a body is inconceivable without it? Here 
are men of all kinds who not only hold that non- 
extended matter is conceivable, but that bodies, when 
reduced to their ultimate elements, are actually without 
extension. This is not only the dream of metaphysi- 
cians, but the theory of practical men of science. We 
have found mathematicians working their problems by 
it, and engineers looking upon it as in no way inconsis- 
tent with the laying down of railroads and the con- 
struction of machines. They are not afraid to look upon 
extension as the mere outward appearance beneath which 
lie the tremendous forces which they wield and handle 
with such astonishing skill. Physiologists have found 
it the best solution of the mysteries of life, and chemists, 
instead of allowing themselves to be seduced by Dalton's 
brilliant discoveries into holding the old atomic theory, 
consider the very contrary view to be a better ex- 
ponent of the facts of this wonderful science. This is 
a marvellous coincidence between metaphysics and 

* Preface to " From Matter to Spirit," of which it has been said 
that the author is Aut de Morgan ant diabolus. 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



73 



natural philosophy. Representatives of all science, 
mental and physical, unite in the same conception of 
matter. Go down, they say, to the inmost constitution 
of the bodies which move around us, and affect our 
senses, and you will come at last to a collection of 
active powers without extension. Thus every science 
renders an unconscious homage to theology, and bears 
witness to the fact that the ordinary laws of locality are 
but a thin veil which may be removed by the power of 
God without impairing the reality of the bodies which 
are at present subject to them. However, enough has 
been said to prove my point, and I may now sum up 
the testimony of physical science. 

1. It is absurd to say that the ever-blessed doctrine of 
Transubstantiation is a physical impossibility. The 
vulgar view of matter, on which this opinion is formed, 
is so far from being absolutely true, that it is held by 
men of the greatest intellect, among natural philoso- 
phers, to be absolutely false. 

2. The dogma is not so based upon the philosophy 
which has passed away as to be unintelligible to men 
of the present generation. In terms of modern science 
the fact may be stated thus: God, by His omnipotent 
power, takes away the forces which compose bread and 
wine, and substitutes for them the Body and Blood of 
Jesus, still miraculously causing the phenomena to 
remain. At the same time He takes away extension 
from the Body and Blood of our Lord, so that no 
obstacle remains to His being on tens of thousands of 
altars at once in Christendom. 

Such is the fact. How it is accomplished is still an 
impenetrable mystery. Let us wonder and adore. 
O men of the nineteenth century, let us hear no more 



74 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



of the impossibility of the doctrine of Transubstantiation. 
You must be very sure that there is philosophical proof 
of its involving a contradiction in terms before you 
venture to assert its inconceivableness, for, after all, 
that is what you mean by impossibility, unless you dare 
to assume that anything is impossible with God. It is 
a marvellous result which we have obtained, and, with 
the physical science of the nineteenth century on our 
side, we are in a position to face its metaphysics. 
Natural philosophy has gained for us ground which we 
can never lose. It shelters us effectually from scepti- 
cism. Expel, we may say to our adversaries, the idea 
of substance, if }~ou will, it returns under the shape of 
force. Destroy the old view of accidents, it will re- 
appear under the name of phenomena. Do your best 
to make extension essential to matter, the possibility of 
its non-extension will come back upon you in spite of 
all your efforts. With this enormous prima facie 
advantage on our side, we are readv to meet the mental 
philosophy of the time in which we live. At the end 
of the seventeenth century we left Leibnitz, if not an 
acknowledged victor, yet at least unconquered, and with 
him we are in a position to argue that the Catholic idea 
of the Blessed Sacrament is not inconceivable, and 
involves no contradiction in terms. Since then a 
second change has come over mental science, the spirit 
of which affects us still, though it began in the last 
century. Up to the time of Leibnitz philosophy was 
dogmatic, and no one called in question the power of 
the mind of man to grapple with the highest truths nor 
the absolute validity of its conclusions. Since then 
philosophy has been occupied with criticising the mind 
itself, and the great questions of the day concern the limits 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



75 



of the human understanding and the grounds of human 
certainty. The boast of this phase of philosophy has 
been that, in contradistinction to the old metaphysics of 
the schools, it has attempted accurately to point out 
how much of our knowledge is real and how much is 
phenomenal. It professes to tell us how much, in our 
view of the external world, comes from the object, and 
how much of colour, shape, and beauty it borrows from 
the mind or senses of the subject which contemplates 
it. Modern thinkers catch the soul in the very act of 
investing the universe with forms which are in reality 
its own creations, and pronounce that the thinking 
being furnishes material objects with the substance, 
quality, and quantity, and the various categories through 
which it is compelled to contemplate them. They even 
lay claim to a power of transcendental criticism upon 
the mind itself, and point out how much that appears to 
us real and eternal may be contingent and relative. 
How far the tremendous powers of thought which have 
been brought to bear upon mental science have suc- 
ceeded in producing a stable result may be doubted. 
However, let us tranquilly look around us, and see whe- 
ther even this philosophy of our own time has pronounced 
the doctrine of Transubstantiation to be contrary to 
the laws of human thought. What has been the effect 
of this terrible crucible upon the belief of mankind in 
the ideas connected with the Blessed Sacrament? 

If,* as we fairly may, we take Kant to be the repre- 
sentative of German thought, we find in him a physical 

* Vide Appendix E. Not to lengthen a discussion, already weari- 
some to many readers, 1 have there quoted an account of Kant's 
theory of matter, as well as given specimens of the views of both 
English and French thinkers on the subject. 



76 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



system singularly in accordance with that of Leibnitz. 
The bold thinker, who has reduced space to be the mere 
subjective form of our knowledge of the outer world, 
the frame in which we are, by the constitution of our 
minds, forced to set the objects presented to our view, 
was not likely to advocate rigid doctrines as to the 
reality of extension. Accordingly, he holds it to be 
simply an appearance, caused by the expansion of forces 
in space, while he looks upon all bodies to be only the 
product of the mutual repulsion and attraction of unex- 
tended active powers. Here evidently is a marvellous 
coincidence of view between minds so different as 
Leibnitz and Kant, and a wonderful corroboration of 
the theory by which the former philosopher proved the 
metaphysical possibility of Transubstantiation. 

Cross over to France, and you find the whole school 
of M. Cousin teaching precisely the same doctrine as 
has prevailed in Germany on the subject of matter. 
Wherever modern thought has dogmatized it is on our 
side. Here is a marvellous consent, indeed, in favour 
of the possibility of the Blessed Sacrament ; Germany 
and France unite in the view which it renders conceiv- 
able. The suspicious eye of the criticism of pure rea- 
son has detected no flaw in it, and the French school, 
which, however it may feel the influence of Kant, is 
yet a thoroughly independent witness, has given in its 
positive adhesion to it. 

There is but one dissentient cry, and it comes from 
the quarter which concerns us most. Wild as is the 
chaos of opinion in England, in one thing alone 
thinkers of the most opposite schools are agreed. Posi- 
tivists and advocates of necessary truth, opponents and 
defenders of the faith, unite in one common assertion, 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



77 



that the dogmas of the Christian religion involve a con- 
| tradiction in terms. All are agreed that the doctrines 
1 of the Holy Trinity and the Incarnation, nay, of the 
j creation of the world, and the existence of an Infinite 
God, are not only above, but contrary to the laws of 
human thought * All schools, Christian or an ti- Chris- 
tian, unite in the view that they are not only incom- 
prehensible, but inconceivable. They are mere words, 
it is said, to which we can attach no positive idea : they 
are not thoughts at all, but the negation of thought. 
I need not say that, if the doctrine of Transubstantia- 
tion is noticed at all, it shares the fate of the doctrine 
of the Holy Trinity. Yet Christian truth takes a 
strange revenge both on its opponents and its unwor- 
thy defenders ; for both alike, by the very arguments 
on which they ground their assertion, are compelled to 
acknowledge or contend for its possibility. While the 
positivist denies to the human mind all knowledge of 
the Infinite and the Supernatural, on the ground of the 
limited nature of an intellect essentially confined within 
the bounds of its own experience, he is also compelled 
by the nature of the case to deny the universality of 
the laws of human thought, and, therefore, to assert the 
possibility of truths which to human logic appear con- 
tradictory. In like manner, even the defenders of 
necessary truth admit that, in the case of the Infinite, 
the necessity for its conception arises not from the 

* Vide Hamilton, Metaphysics, Lecture 38. Mansell, Bampton 
Lectures, 4th edition, pp, 47, 57, 63. There are two honourable ex- 
ceptions to this view of the Infinite in authors, extremely opposed to 
each other, who unite in asserting that the idea of Infinity is positive. 
M'Cosh, Intuitions of the Mind, part 2, b. 2, c. 3; Herbert Spencer, 
First Principles, c 4, a. 26. 



78 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



strength but the impotence of the human mind, and 
that the very notion involves a contradiction ; yet, by 
the very same assertion of human imbecility, they are 
able to contend that, in spite of its inconceivableness, 
the Infinite is true. We are not surprised to be told, 
on the one hand, that extension is a quality without 
which matter is inconceivable, and on the other, to be 
warned that it is a phenomenon, and that " it is not 
competent to argue that what cannot be comprehended 
as possible by us is impossible in reality."* I hear a 
voice from Oxford echoing the doctrines of Edinburgh, 
telling us that our knowledge of matter is simply rela- 
tive ; that space is, it is true, a necessary intuition of 
the human intellect; but that it is perfectly conceivable 
that other beings may be entirely destitute of the 
idea of space; and that, finally, we are utterly unable 
to answer the question, " Do things as they are resem- 
ble things as we conceive them?"f If we turn to the 
positivist school, we should expect that rejecting, as it 
does, all necessary truth, and absolutely confining our 
faculties to experience, it would come to the same con- 
clusion. And we are not disappointed, for we find this 
explicit statement in one of its leaders :{ "It has been 
said that the Creator Himself could not make a body 
without extension, for such a body is impossible. The 
phrase should be : ' such a body is impossible for us to 
conceive.' But our indissoluble associations are no 
standards of reality. That we cannot conceive a body 

* Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, vol. ii. 404. Com- 
pare vol. i. 137, 167. Vide also Mansell's account of Hamilton'* 
views, Metaphysics, 271. 

f Mansell's Metaphysics, pp. 258, 354. 

$ Lewes, History of Philosophy, 445. 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



79 



without extension is true ; but that, because we cannot 
conceive it, the contrary must be false, is prepos- 
terous." 

In conclusion, we might well be content to allow the 
matter to rest here, and to defend the Blessed Sacra- 
ment on the same grounds as Mr. Mansell has defended 
the existence of God and the Holy Trinity. We might 
be satisfied to let it stand or fall with the Infinite, in 
whose existence men are forced to believe, inconceiva- 
ble* as it may appear to them. But we will not quit 
the old ground of the schoolmen, that the Christian 
truth is not contrary to, but above reason ;f nor will we 
allow that the terms of theology are mere words with- 
out meaning. We believe that the Infinite may manifest 
Himself to the intellect of man, and that the conception 
which results in our souls is a real thought, however 
confused, through the imperfect medium which receives 
it. That grand idea is not the negation of thought, 
but its highest effort; it is positive, however incom- 
plete. And, in his better moments, the author whom 
we have named seems to approximate to allowing it. 
Again, he almost startles us, as though he were about to 
touch on the Blessed Sacrament. If we are u compelled 
to postulate the existence of unextended matter,"}: then 
we are compelled to believe in the possibility of the 
reality of the Body and Blood of Jesus after their ex- 

* I use the word "inconceivable" throughout in the sense of the au- 
thor in question, as equivalent to " involving a contradiction in terms." 

t This is involved in the following statement of Lessius : — " Cer- 
tissima et apud omnes recepta sententia est, eaque fide tenenda, vel 
fidei proxima. Deum posse quicquid non involvit contradictionem : 
id est quicquid non includit non esse simul cum esse." De Perfec- 
tionibus divinis, lib. 5, 2. 

\ Mansell, Bampton Lectures, Lect. 5. 



80 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



tension has been taken away. We thus obtain some 
dim insight into the meaning of the theological terms 
in which the doctrine of Transubstantiation is pro- 
pounded. In this case, as in many others, the border- 
land between philosophy and theology is a sort of 
debatable ground between knowledge and absolute 
ignorance. The limit to human thought is not like a 
sheer dead wall of palpable darkness ; it is a beautiful 
twilight through which the rays of the Infinite make 
themselves dimly felt. The mind of man, when he 
comes upon the glorious truths of the Infinity of God, 
and the Holy Trinity, and the Incarnation, is not like 
a stranded ship in a dark night, dashed to pieces by the 
very solidity of the earth. He is safely upborne by an 
element which is friendly, though not his own, and the 
dark depths over which he sails are often luminous, 
while the blessed stars above throw light upon the 
gloom and lead him to the invisible haven, where his 
weary spirit as well as his weary heart will find its rest 
at last. 

A few words will help to sum up the whole. It 
is strange in how many ways the possibility of the 
Blessed Sacrament has been scientifically proved. Even 
those few who find in it a contradiction in terms cannot 
avoid the conclusion that it may be true in spite of all, 
like the existence of God and the dogmas of the 
Christian faith, which we believe in common. Backed 
as we are, however, by the Leibnitzian doctrine of the 
ultimate non-extension of matter, and by its wide re- 
ception on mathematical as well as metaphysical grounds, 
we may confidently assert that the contradiction in 
terms is not proven. The terms in which the blessed 
doctrine is theologically expressed have never been 



MODERN THEORIES OF MATTER. 



81 



proved to be empty words, conveying only a semblance 
of meaning. They have never been expelled from hu- 
man philosophy. As for the existence of substance, it 
is much under the mark to say that it has never been 
disproved. Its belief is guaranteed by physical science. 
The utmost which some few metaphysicians say is that 
its existence cannot be proved, while the same men re- 
assert it under the name of Force, and all scientific men 
who believe in matter believe also m substance, for 
matter is but the one permanent reality which is the 
cause of phenomena. 

Again, though no one believes in absolute accidents, 
yet no one who acknowledges an external reality dis- 
believes in phenomena as distinct from substance. 
There is nothing, therefore, inconceivable in the notion 
that these appearances remain by divine power after 
the substance is gone. Modern science has not a word 
to say against the definition of the catechism, that, " the 
Blessed Sacrament is the Body and Blood of Jesus under 
the appearances" or phenomena " of bread and wine." 

Once more ; let us hear no more of the impossibility 
of Transubstantiation. We have finished our weary 
task. The philosophy of the last three hundred years 
has not destroyed but perfected the great edifice of St. 
Thomas. Rather it has done homage to the truth of 
our blessed Lord's words, when the crucifix stretched 
out its arms to the dear saint, and a voice was heard 
saying: " Thomas, well has thou written of me I" 



G 



PART II. 



THE THEOLOGY OF HOLT COMMUNION. 



UNION WITH GOD. 



85 



CHAPTEE I. 

UNION WITH GOD. 

The Blessed Sacrament is possible. We have seen the 
great masters of human thought coming one by one to 
offer an unconscious homage to the doctrine of Tran- 
substantiation. All honour be to humanity in its suf- 
ferings and intellectual struggles. Error and passion 
may blind it for a time, but it is sure in the long run to 
bear witness to the truth. Man's great restless heart 
cannot for ever be satisfied with falsehood; through 
failure and illusion his living powers win for him the 
knowledge of important truths. Unhappily, during the 
long process, unnumbered souls are lost, and, after all, 
nothing is of importance but the individual soul. Oh ! 
when will the end come, when Jesus will be acknow- 
ledged King of all, and the struggle will be over? 
Meanwhile, let each of us, in his little way, do all he 
can to make Him loved and honoured now. We have 
already travelled over a long and weary way to show 
what we knew before, the possibility of the existence of 
the Blessed Sacrament. Now let us go a step further, 
and say what is comparatively easy: if it be possible, 
it is. 

We are not now in the dark about God, as we were 
before Jesus came into the w 7 orld. We could not, in- 
deed, have argued beforehand that the Incarnation is 



86 



UNION WITH GOD. 



necessary, because it is best, but we know that God 
always has, in point of fact, done what was the best 
possible for us, consistently with His eternal laws. In- 
finite love, such is God's character; and we now know 
for certain that whatever is most loving that He will 
do. When did He ever implant a desire in the heart 
of man which He did not fulfil? We have only to 
look into our own souls, and see what we most long for, 
in order to know what our loving Father will do. 
Strain expectation to the uttermost, O man, thy God 
will not disappoint thee. Given what is most loving, 
we can prophesy what God will do. Now, the Blessed 
Sacrament is the climax of love, and for that reason we 
believe that it is. 

There is one part of the character of God which we 
are ever forgetting, and yet which it imports us most 
to know, and that is, the nature of His love. We are 
ever confounding it with simple benevolence. We 
know that God wishes to do us good and to save us 
from evil. He has sent His only begotten Son, to 
redeem us and to save us from eternal damnation, and 
we do know accordingly that he feels infinite compassion 
for His poor sinful creatures. But we have not yet 
even caught a glimpse of God's great attribute of love. 
Compassion, mercy, benevolence, are not love; these 
words are not only inadequate to express it, but the 
ideas are perfectly distinct. Should we accept pity in 
a human beino; in exchange for love ? Now, it seems 
as though in this case, at least, we may safely argue 
from the human heart to the heart of God. Theolo- 
gians raise the question whether in speaking of God, 
we use the words in the same sense as we do when we 
speak of man, When I think, for instance, of wisdom 



UNION WITH GOD. 



87 



in God, dare I say that it is of the same kind as the 
wisdom which I conceive of man? Two great schools 
of theology are here opposed to each other ; but in the 
existence of the attribute of love at least, who would 
not incline to the Franciscan side and say that the love 
of God is so far one in kind with human love, that the 
one is only the other purified, and raised, to an infinite 
degree? We cannot argue from God's pure intellect 
to our own, for ihey differ absolutely in kind. The 
awful science of God unerring, all-embracing, finds but 
a feeble counterpart in our imperfect knowledge, which 
the further we go, opens before us a deeper ignorance. 
Can our reason, with its manifold diseases of blind 
obstinacy and despairing scepticism, its slow processes 
and infinitesimal results, be said to be one in kind with 
the understanding of God, the object of which is eter- 
nal Truth ? Take again our free-will, involving as it 
does the power of sinning ; can it be the image of the 
immutable freedom, and the necessary holiness of the 
will of God ? Or else, analyse our notion of being ; look 
at our bounded phenomenal existence, our convulsive, 
death-like life, can we be said to be in the same sense 
as the living God, who alone is pure being? The 
utmost that can be said is, that there is a real analogy 
between the knowledge and intellect, the freedom and 
life of God, and our own. So far we remain faithful 
to our great Dominican teacher, but the case does not 
seem so clear with the attribute of Love. How often 
does God set us the example of arguing from human 
Love to His own? " Can a woman forget her infant so 
as not to have pity on the son of her womb ? and if 
she should forget, yet will not I forget thee." " The 
bridegroom shall rejoice over the bride, and thy God 



88 



UNION WITH GOD. 



shall rejoice over thee." In a thousand places of Holy 
Writ, God points to the awful strength and the yearn- 
ing depth of human love, and bids us remember that 
His own is the same infinitely intensified. We may 
draw conclusions, therefore, from our love to His, and 
Ave are quite safe in asserting that, as the love of the 
mother for her child is something far deeper and more 
tender than pity, so, when God says that He is the 
great lover of souls, He does not mean simple compas- 
sion and benevolence, but true and real love. Now 
love ever tends to union, and we may be sure that the 
love of God is an ineffable desire of the closest union 
with our souls. 

Let us dwell upon this thought, for simple and com- 
mon-place as it is, it is one too much forgotten. What 
a light it would shed over the dark problem of life, if 
we could only realize the fact that God loves us, and 
longs for union with us. Let us look at God's various 
dispensations with the human race, and we shall see 
that all tend to the union of the soul with God, and 
find their consummation in it. 

There is no fact to me so wonderful or so full of 
comfort as the unconquerable thirst of mankind for 
God. It seems to be the one blessed remnant of Para- 
dise which remains in the heart of man. Without it 
earth, after the fall, would be simply a hell. The only 
consolation amidst the wild and degrading forms of 
error which by turns have appeared on earth is, that 
they one and all bear witness to the indomitable deter- 
mination of mankind to find out God. When primeval 
traditions grew fainter and fainter, and God seemed to 
have abandoned His creatures to their own devices, 
what a temptation it was to mankind to give up all 



UNION WITH GOD. 



89 



belief, and to live and die without religion. Yet four 
thousand years of sin and passion had not obliterated 
God* from the minds of men; and even in heathen 
Athens, St. Paul could still appeal to the unknown God 
for whom they yearned, and in whom they lived, 
and moved, and existed. The guilty conscience would 
fain have turned atheist, but in spite of their own 
desire to believe that He was not, nay, in spite of what 
was infinitely more trying, His own deep silence and 
apparent abandonment, men still clung to the idea of 
God, still looked for reconciliation with one who seemed 
to be eternally alienated from them. Poor humanity 
still hoped on. Meanwhile the inveterate mysticism of 
the human heart found a vent in the awful rites of 
Paganism. Not with scorn, but with unutterable pity 
should we look upon those terrible superstitions. 
What are all these wild orgies and hideous mysteries, 
but demon sacraments, by which men drank deep into 
the powers of darkness ? They held in their hands the 
cup of devils, and hell-life ran in their blood and fired 
their brains, but they thought all the while to drink 
into the chalice of heaven, and to feel the life of God 
flowing within them. What lured them on was the 
remembrance of the God whom they had lost, and the 
yearning desire to be re-united to Him. They were 
sick at heart for their home in the invisible world, and 
by fair means or by foul, they would break into it. It 

* It is curious that closer researches into the languages and customs 
of heathens have found that, even now, the most degraded have pre- 
served some idea of the true God. Vide Burton's Dahomey, and 
Seeman's Viti, for Africans and Polynesians. Humboldt bears the 
same testimony to the Peruvians and the savages of South America, 
except the Chaymas and the Caribs. 



90 



UNION WITH GOD. 



was like an old tradition of the Tree of Life still lin- 
gering upon earth. They strove by illicit means to 
reverse the curse which drove us from Paradise; but 
their very crime bore wdtness to their earnest crying 
for reunion to the God whom they had lost. It is 
impossible otherwise to account for the universal spread 
of Paganism. No absolute unreality could ever so uni- 
versally delude mankind. We read with melancholy 
wonder of the wild mythologies, and the impious reli- 
gions of races long gone by; we find traces of them in 
the tombs of the dead, and on the weapons and ornaments 
of the living, and we ask ourselves how men and 
women like ourselves could have been strangely stirred 
by such superstitions as these, should have used them 
to hallow their household affections, to bless their mar- 
riage, and to consecrate their graves. We forget that 
all this exists around us now. In the forests of 
America, and the islands of the Pacific, I see varied 
shapes of the same dreadful Paganism which inspired 
the warriors of Marathon, and broke out so often in 
immortal song. I gaze with horror and compassion on 
that dreadful heathen world, and I ask myself the 
meaning of this universal phenomenon. I can find no 
explanation of it but man's inveterate determination to 
obtain real intercourse with the invisible world. Man 
had forfeited the union with God which is his normal 
state, and his yearning heart made to itself gods of the 
fallen angels, and these wild orgies and solemn myste- 
ries were the initiation and the ritual which brought 
him into real contact with his adopted deities. The 
fall has cast an abyss between the invisible and the 
material, but this w r as not the original state of man. 
He still remembered the time when he had powers 



UNION WITH GOD. 



91 



which brought him into sensible intercourse with God's 

I holy angels. His memory still preserved the echo of 
the voice of God walking among the trees of the gar- 
den. It is not natural to man to be so far from God. 
Who is closer to us than the Lord God Omnipotent 

; who made us ? His touch is upon us ; His breath fans 
our cheek; He manifests His presence in our hearts. 
He cannot cease to be around and within us, for His 
Omnipresence forbids it. We know that He is there, 
yet we cannot see Him. Therefore it is that the yearn- 
ing heart longs for union with Him. Man rolls his wild 
eyes around to look for his God, and when he cannot 
see Him, he invokes with wailing incantations the spirits 

j of hell in impotent despair. What more terrible than 
the vainly striving will, expectation strained to the 

: uttermost, yet ever disappointed, hands stretched out 
in the darkness and yet grasping nothing? Is there 

! never to be a term ? Thanks be to God at least, that 
He has not taken away this yearning wish for union 
with Him. Surely He never would have left it within 

| our breasts, to seethe and burn for ever in unquench- 

; able fire, if He too did not. long for union with us, and 
intend to slake our intolerable thirst. Surely the time 
will come when He will give Himself to us again. 

It is not only in the case of the heathen that we find 
traces of the same " feeling after God, and of his not 
beino; far off from everv one of us." I watch the signs 

! of the times, and I see in the intellectual world the 
same dissatisfaction with shadows, the same longing for 
the realities of religion, throwing itself out in the shape 
of strange errors, yet bearing witness to the desire of 
the soul for God. I can conceive the angels crying out 
one to the other: " Watchmen, what of the night?" and 



92 



UNION WITH GOD. 



I try at times to picture to myself what the answer 
would be. Consult the leaders of modern thought, the 
real hierophants of the world's religion, and the high 
priests of its mysteries, and you will see in many of 
them a more earnest striving after God, and a thirst for 
union with Him. There is a strong reaction against the 
utter disruption of physical science, and the science of 
mind which has so long prevailed. Dazzled by their 
own splendid achievements in the knowledge of the 
laws of the universe, men had tacitly pretermitted the 
existence of substance behind its phenomena. Now, 
however, all the old philosophical questions which 
occupied the great minds of the seventeenth century, 
about the nature of matter and its relations to spirit, are 
rising up again, and the solution of them exhibits 
strikingly the spiritual tendencies of the age. Above 
all, men have remembered that God's place in His own 
world has to be adjusted with their philosophy. God 
can no longer be brought in to be the mere gilding and 
ornament of our discoveries. How can the creature 
exist a moment away from the Creator? How can the 
independent activity of a created thing be reconciled 
with the sovereignty and the intimate presence of God ? 
These were the questions which the schoolmen had 
bequeathed to the men of the age of Descartes, which the 
seventeenth century fairly met, which the eighteenth 
dropped, and which the nineteenth is taking up 
again. Science has seen and acknowledged that it can 
tell us of nothing beyond phenomena, and, by the 
humble admission, it has bowed the knees again before 
the throne of God. There is the beginning of a deeper 
theology than the modern conception of the argument 
from design, which looks upon God rather as the 



UNION WITH GOD. 



93 



original sketcher of a vast plan which He leaves His 
creatures to execute for themselves. Nature, as it 
weaves and unweaves its wondrous web before us, is all 
filled with the omnipresence of God, and could not live 
for a moment without union with Him. On the other 
hand, the indestructible ontology of the human mind is 
calling loudly for the substance beneath these pheno- 
mena. There are doctrines afloat in positivist England, 
wild as those of the Gnostics of old, yet in reality only 
the earnest expressions of men athirst for God. Scepti- 
cism itself has been for a long time, not, as it was, the 
self-satisfied acquiescence of men at rest, but rather the 
agony of men forcibly keeping down the doubt that 
will arise, whether, after all, God has not revealed to us 
a mode of reunion with Himself. Oh! blessed doubt, 
stifle it not, it comes from God.* Men have at length 
found out that a state in which the soul has no inter- 
course with the spiritual world implies a defect which 
is death, and that it cannot be the normal state of man 
to know only the shadowy world of phenomena, and 
not the reality and the substance. They have learnt 
that our feelings are mere passive impressions which 
can tell us nothing about God, and they cry aloud for 
real intercourse with Him who is the Life of Man. 
They reconcile the eternal war between consciousness 
and reason by assuming a higher faculty than either, a 
spiritual sense which is to come in contact with God 
Himself. Would that they would learn that this is 
faith. Meanwhile all this bears witness to the faith by 
its unutterable longing for repose in God, and even by 
its wild aspirations after the merging of the human self 
into the great life of God. 

* Vide "Man and his Dwelling-place," passim. 



94 



UNION WITH GOD. 



There are, however, instances of the same longing 
for intercourse with God less striking, but more uni- 
versal. If there be one thing more than' another about 
the popular religion of the day, it is the cultivation of 
the religious feelings ; and what is this again but a 
longing to feel the touch of God upon the soul. Not a 
man on earth but must experience an intense longing 
to know whether God loves him or not. Who is there 
who, when a child, has not wet his pillow with bitter 
tears, yearning to know whether the great God who 
made him cares for him? and as time goes on, when 
the ever-working intellect has only shown us how dark 
and mysterious is the problem of life, who has not at 
times peered into the darkness with streaming eyes to 
find some intimation of God's thoughts about us ? The 
external world is terribly silent about the character of 
God ; it is pure, immaculate, and unfallen, while we 
have the marks of sin upon us. It goes on in its 
beautiful course, unheeding the agonized cry of those 
who w T ould interrogate it about God. It can tell us 
nothing certain about God's personal feelings tow T ards 
us. Hence it is that there is a strong tendency in us all 
to look into the interior world of our owtl hearts to w T in 
from it, if possible, the knowledge which is refused us 
by the outward w r orld. Christianity has only increased 
tenfold the mystical tendencies of the human soul, the 
longing for communion with God. The silence only 
weighs more upon men now that the world is redeemed 
and the soul reconciled to God, and many a heart, in 
the midst of the weariness and monotony of the terrible 
struggle of life, is tempted to echo the melancholy cry 
of the disciples : We hoped that it was He that should 
have redeemed Israel, For this reason it is that we see 



UNION WITH GOD. 



95 



around us so many strange developments of a religion 
of mere feeling. There is a whole world within us of 
thought and feeling, and we take its varied changes as 
a sort of indication of our state before God and of 
our nearness of communion with Him. In vain does 
reason point out that they can tell us but little of the 
deep heart within. They are the mere phenomena of 
our own consciousness ; they are the mere lights and 
shadows which float over the surface of our being, and 
have but little to do with our real inward life. They 
come and go, and are dependent on a thousand things, 
which are not our real selves. At the same time, for 
that very reason, because they are often passive impres- 
sions of we know not what, because they are beyond 
our own control, we have a sort of superstition about 
them, and are apt to ascribe them to the action of 
supernatural things upon our souls. The wondering 
spirit sits within, trembling to all those strange impulses 
which come like electric shocks upon it through the 
nerves, and impart terror or excitement to the mind. 
Here, then, it is that men look for the voice of God 
within their souls. In the silence of nature, we seek 
auguries from our own strange being, and ask of our 
feelings whether we are in favour with God. We do 
not perceive that we are mistaking the lights that play 
upon the surface of our souls for its deepest depths ; so 
eager are we to hear news of God in our exile. We 
think that God is talking to us when we are, in fact, 
only talking to ourselves. But it is useless to reason ; 
men are too eager to find evidence that God loves them 
to listen to argument. The brain asks counsel of the 
heart, when interests so tremendous are at stake. 
Hence it is that men cling to the notion of justification 



96 



UNION WITH GOD. 



by faith, alone, and identify the feeling of forgiveness 
with forgiveness itself. Hence, many a wild and 
grotesque form of mysticism. One and all of them are 
but distorted shapes of the same longing for real com- 
munion with God. The feelings are the senses of the 
soul, and through them it hopes to slake its thirst for 
God ; through them it thinks it can touch and taste the 
powers of the unseen world. 

In a thousand ways does man proclaim aloud the 
truth that it is intolerable to be without God. Nor is 
it an abstraction that He can be contented with. It is 
union with God Himself that he seeks. Each of the 
errors which we have noticed is a desperate spring at 
the substance of God across the wide gulf which yawns 
between fallen humanity and its Creator. Let us not 
despise them, they are worthy of the deepest pity, and 
bear a witness of their own to the truth. They are 
more respectable, and even more rational, than the in- 
difference of worldliness or the stoicism of positivism. 
The conversion of the Methodist is the fanatical eager- 
ness of the soul to know the day and hour of its recon- 
ciliation to God. Even the sickly self- contemplation 
of the Evangelical arises from the same desire to feel 
the present God. All long for repose in God, and so 
far they are right. They err with a fatal error in taking 
the phenomena for the substance, but it is better to 
seek the reality than to give up all search for God, and 
to acquiesce in the world. In the wild orgies of 
heathenism, in the fanaticism of many an erring form 
of mysticism, in the intellectual spirituality of Uni- 
tarian Pantheism, I see the same maddening thirst 
for God. The fall was the universal shipwreck, and 
men are tossing about the wild waves on a broken 



UNION WITH GOD. 



97 



raft, driven to madness by their thirst for the living 
waters. 

Thanks be to God, who has at least left in our hearts 
this desire for communion with Himself. Nothing can 
satisfy the heart of man but the living God. Our life 
is but death without Him. It is no fanaticism to yearn 
for union with God. No shadows can content us ; it 
is God Himself whom we desire. The very life of God 
must come into our own inmost being. " O God, my 
God ! for Thee my soul hath thirsted ; for Thee my 
flesh, in a desert land where there is no way and no 
water. As the hart panteth after the fountains of 
water, so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. My 
soul hath thirsted for the strong, living God: when 
shall I come and appear before the face of God?" 

Will God answer the cry of man? Will He let His 
poor creatures toss on the wild waves of despair, at- 
tempting to slake their eternal, unquenchable thirst as 
best they can ? No, that cannot be. It might have 
been in the abstract. The answer of God might have 
come down in the whirlwind and the thunderbolt, and 
none could have impugned His justice. But God is 
Infinite Love, and it cannot, shall not be. We need 
not speculate as to what might have been; God's 
answer has come down to us. " God so loved the 
world as to give His only begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in Him may not perish, but have everlasting 
life." It was God Himself who created in the human 
heart that craving void which He alone can fill. The 
strong desire for intimate union with Him derives all its 
strength, all the burning fire of its feverish thirst, from 
Him. The impossibility of being happy without Him, 
came from His own act, by which He constituted Him- 

H 



98 



UNION WITH GOD. 



self the end of man. He gave to human affection all 
its yearning tenderness, and its awful strength: and 
He, too, so framed our souls that not even all these 
forms of holy love, which are His own creation, could 
satisfy our hearts. He alone was to be to us more than 
father, mother, brother, sister, wife, or husband. Nay, 
we even know that He Himself yearns for us with un- 
utterable love. What this can mean in the great 
Godhead we cannot tell, but this we know: there is 
something in the Infinite Heart of God, analogous to a 
passionate longing for union with His poor creatures, 
since our love for Him is the mere shadow of His love 
for us. O Infinite Love, what is there that Thou wilt 
not do for us? He that spared not even His own Son, 
but delivered Him up for us all, how hath He not also 
given us all things ? We may see, then, that in the 
redemption, which He has wrought for us, will be in- 
cluded all the possibilities of a real, substantial union 
with Himself. Christianity may be defined to be God's 
scheme for the union of the soul of man with Himself. 
Let us now see how God has carried out the desire 
which He feels to unite Himself with us. 

It is absolutely conceivable that God should have 
pardoned the sinner without uniting him to Himself. 
The two ideas are perfectly distinct. He might simply, 
if He pleased, have imparted to him forgiveness with- 
out effecting any more real internal change in him than 
is implied in mere sorrow for the past. The debtor is 
well content to have his debt cancelled without being 
admitted to the intimacy of his creditor. It would be 
joy enough to the sinner to hear: Go and sin no more, 
thy sins are forgiven thee. Even if the words implied 
no more than meets the ear, it would be a sufficient 



UNION WITH GOD. 



99 



boon for the sinner to escape hell, though the act of 
pardon implied nothing further. We might be too 
happy to be forgiven by God without the infusion of 
grace, to be absloved without being sanctified. It might 
have been so, and an eternity would not have been long 
enough to sing the praises of the God who had dealt so 
mercifully with us. 

This was enough for mercy, but it was not enough 
for love. Let us now analyze what God does in the 
justification of a sinner, and we shall see what is the 
first step in the union of God with the soul. I am not 
going to describe what takes place in the soul of St. 
Teresa or St. Catherine. I do not speak of mystic 
states, where the soul of the virgin saint, purified in 
the fire of the love of God, feels itself melt into the 
spirit of her heavenly Spouse. I am speaking of what 
takes place in every confessional, in the case of the 
most degraded soul, hardened by a long course of 
infamy and vice. This, then, is God's way, and let us 
study it, for every step in the wonderful process proves 
His desire to be united to us. 

God has chosen to bind forgiveness to a sacrament. 
This is His way in this mortal life. He ever gives us 
the reality wrapped up in the shadow. In the order of 
nature the phenomena envelop and convey the sub- 
stance to us : so it is also in the order of grace. Now 
is the time, not of mere shadows, but of truth conveyed 
to us through shadows. The precious Blood is applied 
to us through visible elements. Such is the first con- 
dition to which God has tied the justification of a sin- 
ner. Let us now proceed to study more closely the act 
itself. 

The second principle on which God proceeds in the 



100 UNION WITH GOD. 

justification of a soul is one still more important for 
our purpose than the last. God never forgives a sinner 
without, at the same time, infusing grace into his soul. 
The Pharisees stood round and wondered when Jesus 
pronounced His audible absolution over the outcast sin- 
ner; they would have wondered still more if they had 
seen what the angels saw — the marvellous change in her 
sinful soul. Was it light from heaven that came and 
wrapped her round, unseen by mortal eye, yet visible 
to angelic sight? As the sweet words fall from the 
lips of Jesus, a voice of joy is heard in heaven, loud as 
when the " morning stars praised God together, and the 
sons of God made a joyful melody" at creation's first 
dawn; but not even the pure light which burst in all its 
stainless plentitucle upon the darkness, can compare in 
brightness with the grace which is infused into the sin- 
ner's soul when God takes him back into His favour. 
In this, at least, light is like the grace of God, that it is 
not material; but it belongs to the world of sense, 
while grace enters into an order which neither tongue 
can tell nor heart conceive. It is a part of that great 
spiritual world of which news have reached us; which 
we know, but which we have never seen. This alone 
we know: there is a spiritual quality which lends its 
own special lustre to the soul of Jesus, before which 
even the natural glories of that beautiful spirit grow 
pale, a brightness distinguishable amidst the very splen- 
dours of the Godhead to which it is united, and raising 
its operations to a height in some sense proportionate to 
the Divine Person of the Eternal Word. That quality 
is sanctifying grace. Or turn to look at an angel's 
being ; crowning the beauty of those glorious seraphim, 
adding unutterable strength of loving to spirits already 



UNION WITH GOD. 



101 



formed for heavenly love, heating to tenfold vehemence 
the living lamps that stream and burn before the throne 
of God, there is a quality, the absence of which is the 
difference between these self-same angels and demons 
in hell; that, again, is sanctifying grace. To what shall 
I liken that hallowing influence which comes pouring 
down from the lips of Jesus into the Magdalene's soul? 
It is soft, and gentle, and noiseless as light, but, once 
more, it would be doing it wrong to call it bv that 
name, unless, indeed, we say that it is a reflection of 
the inaccessible light which is the dwelling-place of the 
King immortal, invisible. It is spiritual, yet it is not a 
substance. It is not the habit of charity, though it 
makes our hearts burn and glow with heavenly love. 
It is not the Holy Spirit of God, and it is necessary to 
give you that warning, for so intense is its beauty, so 
glorious is its loveliness, that some have mistaken it for 
God. If I would compare it to anything, I would say 
that it is the supernatural life of the soul, lately dead in 
sin, like the vital force coming upon the organism of the 
body, and raising its merely chemical elements to the 
rank of living things. Sanctifying grace is a spiritual 
quality, which makes the soul to live a heavenly life. 

This, then, is the first part of the process of God's 
justification of the sinner. Simultaneously with His 
forgiveness He sanctifies the, soul. As light with one 
and the same act both dispels the darkness and illu- 
minates the world, so does God both pardon the soul 
and make it holy. There is no shadow here ; it is a 
reality. The forgiven sinner is not only counted holy 
by imputation, he is really hallowed with a sanctity not 
his own, since it comes to him from God, and yet his 
own, because it is a real quality within his soul, though 



102 



FXION WITH GOD. 



separable from it. In other words, God not only 
pardons the sinner in the act of justification, but He 
unites him with Himself. We have only now to 
enumerate what, according to theologians, are the 
effects of sanctifying grace, and we shall understand 
how the union of the soul with God is the object of the 
whole scheme of redemption. If the description of 
them was not taken from scholastic divines, we should 
be disposed to regard them as the pious exaggerations 
of some indiscreet mystic. 

The first effect of sanctifying grace is, that it makes 
the soul worthy of the love of God. So eager is God 
to love us, that the instant that sin — the only obstacle 
which makes it impossible — is removed, He steps in, not 
only to clothe the soul with an outer raiment of 
imputed goodness, but to insert in its inmost being a 
quality which gives it a right to be beloved. How 
little do they know of God, who confine the notion of 
His love to the mere wish to make His creatures 
happy ? That is the mere natural benevolence which a 
kind master feels to his animals or his slaves. But it is 
not enough for God. He yearns to lavish upon us all 
the unutterable treasures of His love. It must be real, 
not fictitious love, and, therefore, by a special act of 
creation, He pours into our soul that which makes us 
worthy of it. There is this difference between God's 
love and creature's love : we are attached to our fellow- 
creatures by qualities which we find in them, but God 
Himself creates all that is lovely in the beings whom 
He loves, and this is the chief end of sanctifvin^ ^race. 
For all purposes of producing virtue in us, actual grace 
would have been sufficient. The intermitting action of 
transient grace, coming at short intervals upon the soul, 



UNION WITH GOD. 



103 



would have acted like electric, shocks upon it, and have 
formed out of it vehement bursts of charity, which 
would have been sufficient to secure it in goodness. 
Flashes of illuminating grace might have come like 
lightning to light up the precipices into which its dark- 
ness was about to hurry it, while other actual graces 
could have been at hand to help the will whenever 
temptation pressed it. In point of fact, sanctifying 
grace requires the constant help of actual to reduce it 
to action at all. Its use lies in that it gives God the 
power of loving us with a real love, because it makes 
us worthy of His love. 

It is no light matter to raise a creature to a state 
which renders it a fit mate for God. Mere purity is 
not enough. A sinless angel without grace could not 
be thus beloved by God. No creature's work, though 
it proceeded from an intellect beyond the angels, and 
from the most heroic will, could make a being worthy 
of God's supernatural love. Still less could anything 
which flows from the tainted fountain of the heart of 
fallen man, merit a single glance of love like that from 
the pure eyes of God. How beautiful then must be the 
grace of God, which so transfigures every little act of 
the human heart that the Everlasting Trinity is con- 
strained to fall in love with it? Sanctifying grace 
enters into the very substance of the soul, saturates it, 
and penetrates all its faculties. It flows into its acts, and 
raises them to a higher order. Nay, it imparts to them 
a heavenly beauty, such that God can love the creature 
with a kind of love analogous to that with which He 
regards His Eternal Son made man.* The love of 

* Vide Suarez, De gratia, Lib. 7 c. 1, whose doctrine I have 
chiefly followed. Also Lib. 6, 12, 8. 



104 



UNION WITH GOD. 



complacency is altogether different from the love of 
benevolence. It is the love with which a mother gazes 
on her child, and drinks in happiness and joy by look- 
ing at the love with which its eyes meet hers. It is the 
love of the Bridegroom in the Canticles, when He calls 
upon His beloved to come to Him, for the winter of 
sin is past, and the flowers have appeared in the land. 
It belongs to God's freewill to give or to withhold 
grace if He chooses; but once given, as long as it 
remains. God cannot cease to love the soul, as He can- 
not withdraw His looks of joyful love from the face of 
His beloved Son, in whom He is well pleased. 

A third effect of sanctifying grace illustrates still 
further the doctrine of the Church on the desire of 
God to unite Himself to the soul. Hitherto I have 
spoken of sanctifying grace, and I have described it as 
a quality bestowed upon the soul. It is as real as the 
soul itself, as much a gift of God as our intellect and 
will. It is a part of the wonders of the beautiful spirit- 
world, like angels, or the human soul of Jesus. 
Wherefore all this lavish expenditure of grace on the 
part of God ? Why all this prodigality of beauty 
bestowed upon souls, many of whom know so little 
how to use it, that it remains all but inactive and 
dormant in some deep recess of our being, only to come 
to light when, after years of purgatory, we reach the 
throne of God? I have said that God gave it to us to 
form the basis of His love, to give us a right and title 
to be loved with the love of complacency. All this, 
however, is but the preparation for something higher 
and more stupendous — the real union of the soul with 
God. He cannot wait the slow progress of death to 
clasp us to His embrace. In forgiving us, He gives us 



UNION WITH GOD. 



105 



grace, and by that grace He lays Himself under a 
blessed necessity of loving us, and when He loves, then 
He comes in reality to unite Himself to us. It is in 
this way that theologians explain the indwelling of the 
Holy Spirit within us. Love produces union, and, for this 
reason, the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity descends 
from Heaven to take up His permanent abode in the soul. 
None, then, can doubt of the love of God for His poor 
creatures, and let us never forget that this is love 
properly so called. Love on earth is a very passion, 
vehement, impatient of delay, of separation, and of 
obstacle. But never did earthly mother fly to clasp in 
her arms the child who had been far away, with half 
the eager tenderness of our God to unite Himself to 
the body and soul of the forgiven sinner. Hardly have 
the words of absolution passed the lips of the priest 
when God the Holy Ghost is there, with the Father and 
the Son. His love brooks no delay. At least He 
might have waited till the time of shadows was past, and 
the conscious soul could welcome its loving God in the 
realms of bliss, when the teasing veil shall be with- 
drawn and the spiritual world revealed. But this does 
not suit the yearning tenderness of God. The pardoned 
sinner has about him still the remnants of old habits, 
but at least he loves enough to make the absolution 
valid, and the love of God cannot wait. The one 
obstacle is withdrawn, and the Spirit of God flows in. 
The flood-gates are flung open, and the deluge of infinite 
love pours in its vehement floods without a moment's 
interval. 

How little reason, then, was there for fear lest God 
should not fulfil the earnest longing of our souls for 
real union with Him ? Much as we long for union with 



106 



UNION WITH GOD. 



Him, He longs for union with us infinitely more. 
What a light it throws upon the words of Jesus on the 
cross ! It was not only human thirst which wrung from 
our dying Lord that awful cry; it was not only the 
thirst of a dying man in his agony, when His veins 
were drained of blood. It was the thirst of the God- 
head for souls. It was the longing desire of our 
heavenly Father, yearning for union with His children, 
and telling us how His Eternal Spirit was athirst for us, 
as the man who is languishing in a sandy desert for the 
wells of living water. 

Such, then, is the way in which God has chosen to 
accomplish the justification of a sinner, a work in which 
He testifies as clearly as possible His desire to be united 
to us. And yet we have not measured the height and 
depth, and length and breadth of the love of God, 
which surpasseth knowledge. This is but the first step 
in the union of God with the soul. We have not yet 
reached the consummation even of such union as 
human imagination could conceive, and human love 
desire ; and, therefore, according to the principle which 
we have laid down, that God fulfils our desires to the 
utmost, we may anticipate that there is another mode 
of union closer still than that which has been described. 
Unreasonable as is human love, the love of God is 
indulgent enough to satisfy even its insatiable require- 
ments. Let us, therefore, search our own hearts, and 
see if God has not lit up there a desire unfulfilled by 
the act of justification. 

Hitherto I have considered the deep natural desire 
for God in the human soul. We have found that in 
spite of his degrading sins and his lamentable weakness, 
man is ever searching for reunion with his God. 



UNION WITH GOD. 



107 



Amidst the horrors of the pagan world, we can still 
trace this craving void for God. The cry for God is 
to be heard in the accents of the wildest Pantheism. In 
vain does the critical, or any other philosophy, hermeti- 
cally seal up all communication between man and the 
invisible world; the spirit still feels for God amidst the 
darkness of the mind. You may succeed in silencing 
the reason, but the heart and the flesh cry out for the 
living God. Christianity has, however, deepened the 
desire of the human soul for God, as it has shown the 
possibility of satisfying it. The craving for God is no 
longer a desperate resolution to believe that He loves us 
in spite of appearances to the contrary. We have heard 
the voice of God Himself on earth, and earth's echoes 
are still tingling all over with His words. We have 
caught sight of Jesus, and we cannot rest till we have 
found Him. The knowledge of the existence of such 
a beino; as Man-God has created a change in us clown 
to our very heart's core. All the full, vehement tide 
of our affections has set towards Jesus. All the trem- 
bling awe-struck love which we felt for God is fixed on 
Jesus, without a transfer, since He is God. The craving 
void remains, but it has lost its despair, for Jesus exists. 
There is a new feeling upon earth in our inmost soul, 
which we cannot describe ; we can only feel it. It is 
made up of awe-struck adoration, and of a deep tender- 
ness, in which all earth's affections are centred and out- 
done. Strange, mysterious feeling ! He died near two 
thousand years ago, yet we love Him like those who 
"saw with their eyes, who looked upon and handled 
with their hands" the Word of life. Childhood lisps 
His name, youth fixes its fiery affections upon Him; 
our manly love only adds fresh fuel to the flame, and 



108 



UK ION WITH GOD. 



it burns unquenched beneath the snows of age. The 
wife loves Him better than her husband, and the mother 
than her children. Hearts throb with gushing love at 
the very mention of His name; tears of joy spring to 
the eyes at the thought that Jesus lives. He is our 
life, and without Him we are spiritually dead. The 
thirst of man for God has not changed in kind by being 
fixed on Him, since our love for Him has for its first 
element our love for God. It has only acquired a ten- 
derness which it had not before, while it has gained 
strength a thousand fold. A new want has arisen in 
our hearts, and we thirst for union with Jesus. This is 
the want which God has satisfied in giving us the 
Blessed Sacrament. 

It will not take us long, after all that has been said, 
to show the adaptation of the Holy Communion to the 
wants of the soul of man. We have only got to com- 
pare it with the union produced by the process of justi- 
fication, in order to see how superior it is in all that 
constitutes our idea of union. 

First, then, it is far more exclusively Christian than 
that produced by sanctifying grace. How different 
are the saints of the Old Testament and the New ! 
There are differences, of course, of country, race, 
and time; for the Christian saints differ in this way 
from each other as much as they do from the Jewish. 
In this respect, probably, Davrd and Elias did not seem 
more unlike St. Anthony of Egypt and St. Louis of 
France, than a saint of the desert or St. Athanasius 
differ from St. Philip Neri and St. Francis of Sales. 
But the change is far more than a mere national one. 
It is not only by the Oriental features or the Jewish 
garb that Judith, as she returned with the head of 



UNION WITH GOD. 



109 



Holoferiies, is distinguished from St. Catherine of 
Sienna, with her wan face and the Stigmata for jewels 
on her hands. They were dissimilar in spirit as much 
as in outward form. Nor, again, did the contrast lie in 
the difference between the formal cause of the justifica- 
tion of the one and of the other. The pardon of sin 
and the sanctification of the soul have been the ele- 
ments of justification ever since the fall. Six thousand 
years have made no difference in that. The grace of 
our first mother, after God had pardoned her, does not 
differ in kind from that of the infant baptized to-day, 
or of the sinner over whom absolution has just been 
pronounced. In that respect the Passion of Christ was 
to the Jews as though it had been already past. The 
cross of Christ was the meritorious cause of the justi- 
fication of Eve as it is of our own. But there was one 
thing which could not be then, and that was the Blessed 
Sacrament. God could justify David on the prospec- 
tive merits of David's unborn Son ; but not God 
Himself could cause the real Body and Blood of Jesus 
to exist before they were conceived in Mary's womb, 
that is, to be and not to be at the same time. It is this 
which makes the difference between the old dispensa- 
tion and the new; Jesus was future then, and He is 
present now. Theirs was the time of hope ; and ours 
the time of union with Him. They looked across the 
lapse of centuries waiting for Him whom we possess. 
Clear as is the vision which the prophet saw of the 
wondrous child whom the virgin should conceive, and 
of Him who came with dyed garments from Bosra ; yet, 
what is the vision of Jesus to the reality? The meanest 
Christian who makes his Easter receives a greater gift 
than did the kings and prophets who longed to see His 



110 



UNION WITH GOD. 



day, and saw it not. For this reason it is that the 
saints of the Christian Church so far outnumber the 
saints of the old dispensation. For this reason it is that, 
while the Jewish maiden mourned her solitude upon the 
mountains of Judea, countless virgins, without thinking 
themselves saints, abandon all to win the title of spouses 
of Christ. Trace all these wonders of the Christian 
Church to their source, you will find it in the Holy 
Communion. It is the Blessed Sacrament which makes 
the real difference between the Christian and the Jew. 

Let no one wonder at the assertion, that the union of 
the soul with Jesus, in the Holy Communion, is higher 
than that effected in justification. It was called of old, 
by the earliest mystical writer in the Church, the highest 
possible union. Scholastic writers become eloquent 
when they speak of this w r ondrous union. The angelic 
doctor is turned into the seraphic, as he dwells with 
complacency upon every step of the argument which 
proves it. Is it not the property of love to unite itself 
with the beloved object? Now, the Blessed Sacrament 
is the very highest act and expression of the love of 
Jesus towards us ; it must, therefore, be also productive 
of the closest possible union. Again, God ever does 
perfectly whatever He undertakes. Now, the final 
cause of the Holy Eucharist is union. Other Sacra- 
ments also unite us to God, but the very aim and object 
of this one is union. No wonder, therefore, if it is the 
masterpiece of God, and if the union which it produces 
is the highest possible, according to the ordinary power 
of God, after the Hypostatic union and Mary's Mater- 
nity.* 

* Vide Cienfuegos, Vita Abscondita, Disp. 8, sect. 4, 69, where 
the doctrine of St. Thomas is stated. 



UNION WITH GOD. 



Ill 



How wonderfully Jesus condescends to all the require- 
ments of human love. It is for this reason that this 
union with our souls in the Holy Communion should be 
a local one. Separation is one of the great trials of 
those who are dear to one another upon earth. How 
often does the whole length of the globe separate hus- 
band and wife, mother and children ? Love is not in 
its normal state when they are far away from one ano- 
ther. Union of hearts is not enough. Such is our 
nature, that distance seems to tear asunder our inmost 
being, and to sever our very life. For this reason it is 
that our Blessed Lord has taxed His Divine Wisdom to 
the utmost, in order to be w T ith us locally on earth. 
Freed as He is in the Blessed Sacrament from the com- 
mon laws of space, by the liberation of His body from 
extension, He re-enters into them by binding Himself 
to the species. No vague, indefinite " real presence" 
will satify us. We must be able to say to ourselves 
precisely, " That is not bread, but the Body of Jesus. 
In the little round of the consecrated Host is He con- 
tained. Here is my Lord, and not there. He is in the 
tabernacle before which I bend. He is within me 
now." 

Again, it is necessary to the idea of perfect union 
that v» T e should be conscious of it ; and this involves a 
knowledge, not only of the place, but of the time also 
at which it takes place. It is of little consolation, 
indeed, to friends to meet without recognizing each 
other ; to be locally present, without being aware of 
their proximity. For this reason Jesus has made His 
presence sensible, by binding it so closely to the species. 
He could not render His glorious body visible without 
filling us with such fear, that intimate union would 



112 



UNION WITH GOD. 



have been impossible. He, therefore, so renders the 
species one with His Eucharistic being that, in looking 
upon them, we can say that we see Him. We can 
truly predicate of the Blessed Sacrament ; that is Jesus. 
He has wonderfully contrived to provide for the possi- 
bility of the most intimate familiarity with Him, and 
the most perfect consciousness of His presence. We 
know the precise moment when He comes, and with 
the full spring of our joyful hearts we rise to meet 
Him, and we know that he is within our very body. 
If He must hide Himself, the veil is as thin as possi- 
ble, and does not interfere with our entire conscious- 
ness of His presence. We know the time and place of 
His coming as exactly as we can grasp the hand of a 
friend. Mary was not more conscious of the instant 
when He was by her side or lying on her lap, than we 
are of the moment when Jesus comes to us in the 
Blessed Sacrament. In this divisibility of His presence, 
again, our union with the Sacred Humanity in the Holy 
Communion differs from that which takes place through 
the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in justification. 
Sanctifying grace lies down deep in the substance of 
the soul, and never comes to the surface at all. Actual 
grace renders itself felt, because it mingles in our 
thoughts and feelings; but the Holy Ghost dwells in 
the depths of the spirit, a dark profound, which con- 
sciousness never reveals. Blessed be Jesus for ever- 
more, who comes to us in such a way that body and 
soul feel and are conscious of His presence. 

Lastly, the union between Jesus and the soul, in the 
Holy Communion, is the closest possible, because it is 
the most immediate that we can conceive. In the case 
of justification, sanctifying grace is the medium of 



UNION WITH GOD. 



113 



union between the Holy Spirit and the soul ; but in the 
Blessed Sacrament we come into immediate contact 
with the Sacred Humanity of our Lord. No earthly 
union can be compared to it. Men may love each 
other upon earth, but their souls are ever separate. 
" The heart that knoweth the bitterness of his own soul, 
in his joy the stranger shall not intermeddle." * There 
are ever depths in our souls, into which no one can 
penetrate. Heart cannot melt into heart, even when love 
is greatest. But in the Holy Eucharist there is nothing 
between the soul of Jesus and our own. Body is united 
to body; spirit to spirit. The union has no example 
upon earth ; each shy, solitary spirit sits alone, and can- 
not pour itself out into that of its best beloved, even if 
it would. Hence it is that the Fathers are obliged to 
use the likeness of physical union to express what is 
most spiritual; they compare our union with Jesus in 
the Blessed Sacrament to the melting of two pieces of 
wax, or the fusing of two metals in the fire. What is 
more one with us than our food? It enters into the 
very substance of our bodies ; it becomes our blood and 
bone. It turns into the brain, with which we think ; 
the heart, with which we love. Through our food, we 
enter into strange communion with the outer world ; 
the being of nature enters into our inmost being; her 
life becomes ours. It is into this sort of union that we 
are brought with Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, only 
that the stronger life absorbs the weaker. It is our 
being that is transformed into His ; not His into ours. 
Human imagination cannot conceive a union more com- 
plete, nor human love desire a closer one. "It was a 



* Prov., xiv, 10. 



I 



114 



UNION WITH GOD. 



great thing," says St. Thomas, " to make Himself our 
fellow; a greater to become the price of our redemp- 
tion ; the greatest of all to give Himself to us as our 
food." 

We have travelled over another stage m our journey. 
I have shown you how the Blessed Sacrament is possi- 
ble. Next, we have seen how well it is adapted to our 
nature; how worthy of the Infinite love of the God 
who died upon the cross for us. What remains for us 
now but to consume our whole life in the service of 
Him who has loved us with such surpassing love? 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 115 



CHAPTER II. 

THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

Jesus, God and Man, is all in all to us. We are dead 
by nature, and if we are to live, His life must flow 
into us, and become ours. This is Christianity, and 
there is no other. We are now going to study the 
great means by which this is effected. Our Lord 
redeemed us on the Cross, but there still remained the 
application of this great redemption to each individual 
soul, and this is done through the sacraments, and, 
above all, through that one which is the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. The same Sacred Humanity, the beauty of 
which has so often ravished our hearts with love, is to 
be the source of our sanctification. As it was no ideal 
body which was torn on the Cross, and no phantom 
blood which was shed, so no figure of the Manhood of 
Christ can communicate His life to us. The same Body 
and Blood, animated by the living soul, and imbued 
with the living Godhead, must come to transfuse the 
great life-stream into the intimate being of every one 
of us. Union with the living Jesus, this is the great 
end of the Blessed Sacrament, and we are now going to 
study the life which Jesus lives here in order to unite 
Himself to every one of us. 

The wonders of that great Sacrament are not 
exhausted by the study of the moment of transubstan v 



116 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

tiation itself. When the great act of consecration has 
been accomplished, when the Sacred Humanity has taken 
the place of the substance of the bread and wine, we 
can still try to penetrate into the life and operations of 
Jesus beneath the veil. A thousand questions rise up 
as to how the powers of His being are affected by the 
inextension of His human frame. What are His 
thoughts and feelings while a willing captive in the 
Host? He must be living, since He died once for all, 
and can never die again; what is the physiology of 
that most wondrous life? Even His Body must be 
living; does His soul still use it as its organ? Are His 
senses awake, or are they buried in the sleep of mystic 
death? We gaze at the Host as it lies before us, and 
all these thoughts throng upon our souls. Above all, 
at the great moment of Holy Communion, we fain 
would know whether He is simply passive, and, if not, 
what are the operations of His Sacred Humanity at that 
moment. The Blessed Sacrament is a very world in 
itself, and we feel the same thirst for knowledge of its 
wonders as others do for those of the world of nature, 
which weaves and unweaves its many-coloured web 
around us. We have examined into the structure 
of the Blessed Sacrament; and we are now going to 
study the life and the functions of Jesus in that great 
mystery. We feel that Holy Communion must have 
its separate theology. It is already an inexpressible 
wonder that all the wonders involved in the production 
of the Blessed Eucharist have communion for their end 
and object. Each of the countless hosts consecrated all 
over the universe is destined to be received on a human 
heart. It may first be raised on high for blissful, 
silent adoration, amidst the blaze of lights and the 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 117 



sweet smell of flowers, but, after all, its destiny is to be 
received. It is elevated for a time on a throne, but its 
last home is a human breast. We carry Him in proces- 
sion, we enshrine Him for a while in gold and jewels; 
but He finds His way at last to the most intimate union 
with some one of His poor creatures. This was why 
He left heaven and came down. All the exhaustless 
miracles of transubstantiation involved in that Host, 
each one of which throws into the shade the countless 
wonders of the living forces or the dead mechanism of 
the universe, have this end in view, to unite the Sacred 
Humanity and the Godhead of Jesus with some indi- 
vidual. This is not the least wonder of the Holy 
Eucharist. That strange nativity which takes place on 
the altar, has this peculiarity in it, that while in the 
midnight birth at Bethlehem, Mary's Child was born for 
all the world, the extension of the Incarnation involved 
in each Host is made for some one particular soul. 
What infinite love does Jesus show to each one of us. 
All the miracles in each Host, involving the full stretch 
of God's Omnipotence, are worked for the poor pleasure 
of uniting Himself with some wretched sinner, who has 
just been absolved from mortal sin. No pure bosom of 
Mary awaits Him here, but some heart but lately 
stained with guilt. He is, indeed, the lover not only 
of the human race, but of each particular soul in that 
countless multitude. There in each little Host that we 
gaze upon are miracles, thick as the stars which throng 
the heavens, and greater than the original creation 
which brought them into being ; and each Host, with 
its separate wonders, is meant for its own communicant. 
Jesus loves each one of us with such a tender and parti- 
cular love, that He enters upon His Eucharistic life 



118 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

for the ultimate purpose of uniting Himself most 
intimately with the passionate and wayward nature 
of every one of us, of sharing its human joys and 
soothing its human sorrows, of rendering its temptations 
tolerable, and of transferring into it His own pure 
life. 

Such is the general idea of the mystery of Holy 
Communion, but it will not do for us to rest in vague 
generalities; we must strive to penetrate as far as is 
possible into His great act of love, and to understand 
what is the life which Jesus leads in the Host in order 
that we may know, as far as we can, what are His 
operations in our souls. 

Let us take, then, the moment of Communion. The 
Confiteor is said, and the priest holds the little white 
Host in his hand, and bids the worshippers in the 
hushed and tranquil Church look on the Lamb of God 
who takes away the sins of the world. He uses the 
centurion's touching words, to put the kneeling and 
expectant communicants at the altar-rail in mind of the 
greatness of the Lord, who is to enter into their inmost 
souls, and their soul's lowly house. He descends the 
steps of the altar, and places the Lord of heaven upon 
the tongue of His sinful creature. Let us, however, 
forget the communicant, and fix our thoughts solely on 
the Blessed Sacrament. We know that the Sacred 
Host flew from the altar to seek out St. Catherine of 
Sienna as she remained at a distance on her knees, 
crouching down in a corner of the church, weeping 
because she could not receive her Lord. Jesus, in the 
Host, was all the while even more eager than the saint, 
who had been burning with desire to be united to Him, 
and satisfied His eagerness by working the miracle. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 119 

We know that He sank through the breast of St. 
Juliana Falconieri, when she could not receive Him 
through her lips. He, in the Blessed Sacrament, also 
longed for the last time to be united to her upon earth, 
though the dying saint only dared to ask to gaze upon 
the Blessed Sacrament once more before she died. 
But, in the Communion which we are contemplating, 
there is no saint in the case. It is only such a one as 
takes place at countless altars in Christendom every 
day. It is some ordinary Christian who has been to 
confession, and is in a state of grace. What is going 
on in the soul and body of Jesus, beneath the sacra- 
mental veil, in such a communion as that? Our Lord 
makes no sign. All is done swiftly and silently. 
He is quite passive in the hands of the priest; He obeys 
the ordinary laws of motion, which rule all dead and 
inanimate things, not those which regulate the rapid 
night of angels and of spirits. He is inseparably 
chained to the species, and betrays no powers of motion 
of His own. The priest relaxes his hold a little, and 
He falls to the ground. He has given up all the 
privileges by which living things can interfere with the 
empire of weight, and can have movements of their 
own. Nay, He interferes not with the common quali- 
ties of the species by which bread and wine affect 
our taste and touch, and yield to the action of vital 
powers within us, or obey the laws of corruption; all 
these go on as though He was not there, though He 
Himself is unchanged. Pie seems indifferent to all the 
powers of nature, to all that takes place around. The 
light of heaven shines upon Him when He is taken 
from the tabernacle, but He betrays no sensation. He 
has withdrawn Himself into a sphere far removed from 



120 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

all the influences of the external world. He is to all 
appearance passive, inanimate, dead. 

Is there any life in that seemingly dead Christ? We 
know that grace flows out of Him in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, but is it like water flowing from the hard rock 
at the stroke of the prophet's rod ? Is it like the red 
blood which rolled down His side to the ground when 
His pierced heart was dead? Or else, is it the result of 
His conscious, vital action in the Blessed Sacrament? 
I know that He works evermore in heaven ; but I am 
speaking now about Jesus in the Host. What is He 
doing at the moment of Communion? Does He know 
me? Can He hear me? 

The instinct of every one of us answers this question 
in the affirmative. In some sense we all feel that in the 
Holy Communion Jesus knows and loves us, that He is 
conscious and living. But the question is how He does 
so, and the only way to answer it is to consider the state 
of all the complicated powers which make up the being 
of Jesus one by one, and to see what we can gather on 
the subject from the teaching of the Church. We are 
more free than usual in the inquiry, for we are enter- 
ing upon ground where little is defined. The opinions 
of theologians, however, are still our guides as to what 
we may hold and what we may not. The possibilities 
of the Sacred doctrine are always limited. We can 
exhaust the number of consequences which can flow 
from the truth, and we can tell which are inconsistent 
with the analogy of faith, though we cannot always 
tell which is absolutely true. The inquiry will amply 
reward us, for it will open before us the depths of the 
doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament, and, consequently, 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 121 

teach us more of the love of Jesus, although we cannot 
sound them. 

What is there contained in the white circle of the 
little Host, which the priest has held in his hand, and 
which he has given us ? First, there is the great dread 
Godhead. It never left the Sacred Humanity since 
first the life of Jesus began in Mary's womb. The 
Godhead can never leave it. When the Body and the 
Soul of Christ were most widely separated, it remained 
with each. It accompanied the soul to the limbus of 
the Fathers. It staid with the lifeless Body in Mary's 
arms; it descended with it into the tomb. It never 
ceased to be united with any drop of the Precious Blood 
which was to come back to His veins after the resurrec- 
tion. It could not, therefore, but accompany the Body 
and the Blood in the Blessed Sacrament. The everlast- 
ing Godhead is, therefore, in the particle given to the 
communicant. The Son is there, and consequently the 
Father and the Holy Ghost. If by an impossible sup- 
position God ceased to be present in the whole universe, 
and abandoned every being, spiritual and material, still 
His other presence in the Sacred Host might still con- 
tinue. But, above all, the Eternal Word is there, pour- 
ing His never-ceasing unction over that ever-blessed 
Body and Soul, as when the Incarnation first took place, 
and Mary felt the Sacred Heart of Jesus beating beneath 
her own. There His Godhead still imbues His sacred 
flesh, and the precious Blood is all impregnated with its 
power. But though all this is certain, it helps us but 
little on our way. The presence of the Godhead is not 
a proof of life. The Body of Jesus was cold and un- 
conscious when it was taken down from the cross, when 
Mary washed it, and wrapped the winding-sheet around 



122 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

it, though it was still a sacred thing, because the God- 
head penetrated it. The soul was far awaj^ and even 
the Sacred Heart had ceased to love, though not to he 
divine. It was a lifeless corpse which was carried to 
the tomb in that mournful funeral procession, and the 
inanimate limbs returned not to Mary's embrace, though 
she genuflected to the Body, because God was there. 
The presence of the Godhead, therefore, can tell us 
nothing of the life of the Manhood. We must know 
the state of the Soul and the Body of Jesus before we 
can tell whether the Sacred Humanity knows and loves 
us in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Let us now, then, go on to consider the state of the 
soul of Jesus in the Host. It is certain that the soul of 
Jesus is in the Blessed Sacrament. The same great 
soul which, when He was on earth, spoke through His 
lips, looked through His eyes, modulated the sweet 
tones of His voice, thought with His brain, and loved 
with His heart, is in each particle of the Host, and is 
consequently received by the communicant. It is there 
with the self-same relations to the sacred flesh of Jesus 
which it had on earth. It is the form of the body now 
as then, else the body were a lifeless mass. Now as 
ever, it requires no link, half spirit and half matter, 
intermediate between itself and that beautiful organ- 
ism ; but directly and by its own powers it is its life, it 
animates it. It makes it one, and is the source of all 
the operations of which it is capable. Again, it is there 
with all its powers of will and understanding unim- 
paired. It can love as when He was on earth before, 
with all its old tenderness and vehemence. It is there 
with all its intellect, its human consciousness, and its 
earthly memories, its recollections of the past as fresh 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 123 

as yesterday, and of all that those thirty-three years 
brought to Him of sorrow or of joy. Need I say that 
all its supernatural powers are there as well, its graces 
in all their infinity and plenitude, and all the riches 
with which the Father loved to deck the Manhood of 
the Son? 

Nothing of all this surprises us ; we know that the 
extension of the body can make no difference to the 
innate powers of the soul, and, therefore, we are not 
astonished to know that it possesses them all within the 
circle of the Host which w T e receive. Still, however, 
we are not yet in a condition to answer the question 
which is before us. In order to gain a knowledge of 
what is going on around Him, does He not want His 
external senses to inform Him of it, and are not all the 
channels by which we communicate w 7 ith the outer 
world closed up in the Blessed Sacrament? Since His 
body is deprived of extension, must not a sort of mystic 
death seal His eyes and ears, so that His Manhood is 
unconscious of our presence when we pray; of our 
closeness when He is united to us in Holy Communion ? 
In vain may the soul of the blind be endowed with 
wondrous faculties of intellect; no power of thought 
will ever help them to see the actions of those around 
them. It does not follow, then, from the presence of 
His soul that our Lord, as Man, is conscious of the 
moment when we are united to Him in the Holy Com- 
munion, unless we know that He has powers of com- 
munication with us w T hich dispense with the senses, or 
else that His powers of sense are unaltered, by the state 
of inextension of His Body in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Once for all, then, on one of these counts at least, it 
is certain that Jesus in the Sacred Host can know and 



124 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

love us personally. The instinct of our heart told us 
true ; it is not only by the passive outpouring of grace 
that Holy Communion helps us; but that outpouring 
takes place with the will and knowledge of Jesus. 
Our Lord is not dead, nor even in an ecstatic sleep ; it 
is with the full consciousness of His Sacred Manhood 
that He is given to us; and Holy Communion is the 
conscious union of our living Lord with our living 
souls. 

He has powers perfectly independent of sense by 
which, in the Sacred Host, He knows full well the 
moment of His being given to us, and can recognize 
and love His poor creatures to whom He is uniting 
Himself. He has not left behind Him in heaven His 
inalienable right, the beatific vision. It was with Him 
when He was visibly on earth; why should it not be 
with Him now? It accompanied Him to His ve^ 
Cross ; it was only withheld from the sensitive part of 
His soul, that it might be compatible with the bitterest 
grief. Now, however, that all need of, and possibility 
of sorrow is passed, do not suppose that the darkness of 
the tabernacle or of the Host, were it ever so deep, can 
take away from the Sacred Humanity the face of 
God. Make the Blessed Sacrament ever so dark a 
prison, exclude ever so carefully the light of heaven, 
you never can shut out God. He is in a sweet 
captivity, as He lies in the narrow circle of the Host; 
and even in its smallest particle, He is filled with a 
peaceful happiness, compared to the boundless joy of 
which the sum of all the several beatitudes of angels and 
of saints is but as a drop in an illimitable sea. There is no 
ebb and flow in the tideless ocean of the beatitude of 
Jesus ; and the Sacred Heart, in the Host which we hold 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 125 

in our hands, is steeped in the blissful peace of never- 
ending joy. Even if His ears were deaf alike to the 
music of the spheres and the hymns of earth ; if His 
eyes had foregone for our sakes, in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, the vision of the sweet face of Mary, the full 
sight of the face of God never could abandon Him. 

Now, see what this proves with respect to His know- 
ledge of us in the Blessed Sacrament. I need not 
enumerate all that the beatific vision involves ; but this 
is certain, that in that great mirror of the Godhead He 
sees all things. Amidst all the crowded vision of the 
past, and the never-ending vista of the future ; nay, 
amidst all that part which He can know of the infinite 
ideal of what is possible for God to accomplish, Jesus is 
still cognizant of what is actually before Him ; and out 
of all the several actions in that great drama of the 
present, He can fix His thoughts upon what is being 
done by our little soul. He is all ours in that little 
Host, as undividedly ours as though nothing existed, or 
had ever existed, in the boundless universe. His whole 
undistracted intellect gives its attention to us; and 
when He is given to us in Holy Communion, our little 
soul becomes His spouse, as though we had no rivals, 
as indeed, practically, we have not, in His boundless 
love. 

That which is involved in the beatific vision is, how- 
ever, evidently only one of the kinds of knowledge 
possessed by the human soul of Jesus, previous to the 
action of His senses. That there must be for spirit 
some means of knowing matter apart from the senses is 
plain, from the fact that the glorious intelligence of the 
angels knows far more of the universe than we. There 
must be channels by which the outward world forces its 



126 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



influences directly upon the spirit, far other than the 
indirect way by which they reach us through the body. 
We gather what we can of the beautiful world around 
us from the response of our nerves of sense to some of 
its wondrous powers, and we draw conclusions as to 
its qualities, from the feelings which it evokes in us; 
but the immaterial spirits of the angels have neither the 
capacity nor the need of such a circuitous way. 

It is plain that there must be other ways by which 
spirit knows matter than by medieval phantasmata or 
modern perceptions, else the material creation would be 
impervious to the angels. Accordingly, theologians 
have noticed as many as two ways by which those pure 
spirits gain a knowledge of the world of matter; and 
these form the two kinds of science which they have 
called the morning and the evening knowledge of the 
angels. In the morning of each of the days of creation 
God showed them the idea in the mind of Heavenly 
Wisdom, which was to be the pattern of the day's 
work, and the form to be stamped on the shapeless 
mass of matter. This was one way in which they 
knew creation; but on the evening of one of those long 
days, when the fiery action was over, and the molten 
mass had settled down to rest, or out of the weltering 
sea the fair land arose for the sun to shine upon ; or 
when organic life had begun, and the virgin forests 
overspread the earth ; or, later still, when fishes lived in 
the deep waters, and beasts among the trees, then the 
angels acquired a new knowledge of what they had 
known before in the mind of God. They learnt in the 
evening, from creation itself, what the morning had 
prophesied. They contemplated the actual works of 
God, of which they had known the ideal before. In 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



127 



some way, which we do not know, the spirits of the 
angels were conscious of the beautiful sounds, and the 
brilliant colours, and the graceful shapes of creation, 
though they had neither sight nor hearing to convey 
them. In the case, however, of the cherubim them- 
selves, there was, according to the scholastic principle, 
something intermediate between the intellect and the 
thing known. We hear, therefore, of immaterial spe- 
cies in the case of the evening knowledge of the angels. 
Species there must be, since even an angel can only 
know an object through an idea of it, which he has 
formed himself, out of the impression derived from it; 
but these species are not material, like the images 
thrown on our senses by the things which we see, 
though they stand to the angels in the same relation as 
those phantasmata to us. Place an angel in a tropical 
^forest, and the aromatic scents of the flowers, the sweet 
song and the gay plumage of the birds, and the 
creepers wreathed around the waving trees, all will im- 
press themselves upon his intellect, though their im- 
pressions will be immaterial, like the pure spirit to 
which they are conveyed. 

Such is the scholastic account* of angelic knowledge ; 
and because it would not be well if even the human 
intellect of the King of angels were inferior to that of 
His subjects, the soul of Christ has the same immate- 
rial species as the angel derives from the external world. 
In His case, however, as He has a human soul, and the 
universe can only naturally reach it through the senses, 
these angelic species must be infused by God Himself. 

* I need not say it is not the only view of the schoolmen on the sub- 
ject. For the species of the angels, vide Suarez de Angelis, lib. 2, 6. 



128 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



Accordingly, before ever He had seen the light, or His 
infant eyes had been opened on the objects of sense, 
while He was still in Mary's womb, the image of the 
outward world had already been impressed upon His 
soul by God. Again, not only was the material uni- 
verse shown to Him, but the same kind of image or 
idea of all things that had been, that were in existence, 
or that were to be, was poured into His intellect, by 
this infused science. 

Here, then, besides the beatific vision, we have an 
instance of the means by which Jesus has a knowledge 
of objects, independent of the action of His senses, and 
which, consequently, He retains in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. Even granting that He cannot use His senses 
there, He has but to use His infused science in order to 
be conscious of our presence in the church, when 
we are praying before Him, or when He descends inffll 
our inmost being, at the moment of Holy Communion. 
By this very science, when He was on earth, eighteen 
hundred years ago, the human soul of Jesus knew us as 
distinctly as if we were in existence, as clearly as He 
knows us now. This is a thought full of sweetness and 
consolation. When the red beads of blood were 
rolling down His pale face in His agony, He knew 
us personally already ; His prophetic soul could foretell 
all our trials, distresses, and temptations. He thought 
of us individually upon the cross, and offered up His 
great sacrifice for us. Above all, in instituting the 
Blessed Sacrament, He had the soul of each one of us 
in view, and longed for union with us. No wonder, 
then, that by the presence of the same infused science, 
His human intellect is able to be conscious of what goes 
on at the moment of Communion, and while His body 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 129 

has no movement but that which it derives from the 
priest who holds Him in his hand, yet His soul can 
embrace us, and actively co-operate in infusing His 
Divine life into ours. 

We have secured, therefore, the consciousness of 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, whatever becomes 
of the question as to whether our Lord possesses the 
use of His senses in the Host. He can know and love 
us personally, whether He can see us with His eyes and 
hear our prayers with His ears, or not. We have 
ascertained much respecting the state of the soul of 
Jesus; but, insatiable creatures that we are, the know- 
ledge which we have gained only encourages us to ask 
for more. Every addition to our knowledge is precious 
when the subject-matter is our Lord. Besides which, 
there is something so much more human in the thought 
that our Lord can see and hear us, when we kneel 
before the altar; it brings Him so much nearer to us, 
that we cannot help desiring it. We are the spoiled 
children of His love, and the more He gives us, the 
more we long for. Certainly, the very fact of His 
presence upon earth seems to imply a knowledge of us, 
other than that which He possesses in heaven. Surely, 
the localizing of His presence in the Blessed Sacrament 
implies a wish to be with us; and how is He really 
nearer to us, if the knowledge which He has of us is 
not different from that which He has on His throne 
above? By infused science, He knew us before we 
were born, and however perfect, intimate, and distinct 
is that science, yet our unreasonable hearts crave for an 
experimental knowledge, even though our intellect tells 
us that the other is quite sufficient. The analogy of 
His sacred humanity upon earth would lead us to 

K 



130 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



expect that in the Blessed Sacrament also He would 
have an empirical as well as an infused knowledge. 
When He was on earth, those who loved Him would 
not have been satisfied with knowing that He knew 
them at a distance as well as if they were present; they 
longed to be with Him, and were not happy out of His 
sight. The three kings crossed mountains and deserts, 
that the eyes of the infant Jesus might rest upon them, 
and that they might feel the touch of His little hand, 
which Mary placed upon their head. St. Mary 
Magdalene could not rest except when she was sitting 
at His feet, and could feel that His looks of love were 
fixed upon her. It is natural, therefore, and right to 
wish that Jesus, in the Blessed Sacrament, can see and 
hear us. It is quite true that the majority of theo- 
logians are of the opposite opinion ; yet, I cannot help 
thinking that, if we could collect the votes of the faith- 
ful, most of them would tell us that during the time of 
exposition, in some way which they cannot explain, He 
can see them with His very eyes from His throne. 

Such are the wishes that arise in our hearts, and may 
it not be said, that the very existence of the desire is an 
argument in favour of our Lord's having granted it? 
Considering the prodigal generosity of the love of 
Jesus, it seems probable that He would grant us what- 
ever consolation is possible. If the Blessed Sacrament 
is the means by which Jesus makes up to us for His 
forced absence in heaven, He would strive to make His 
presence on the altar as like as possible to that which 
existed when he was upon earth. It is a joj^ful thing 
to think, when Jesus is exposed in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, and we are kneeling at His feet, that His sweet 
eyes are bent upon us, and that He hears our sighs. It 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 131 

adds to the joy of Holy Communion to think that He 
hears our protestations of unworthiness in the Ci Domine 
non sum dignus." At that moment it seems to enhance 
the excess of His love to think that He is sensibly 
conscious of our presence. Surely, Jesus would neglect 
no possible means of bringing Himself nearer to us ; 
and is He not nearer, if the thin veil of the species is 
only an obstacle to our sight, not to His; and if, 
instead of being removed from us, into a state of bodily 
unconsciousness, from which He only escapes by the 
operations of His infused science, He can hold human 
intercourse with us, as we do one with another? 

So far, then, there is a prima facie probability in 
favour of the view that our Lord, in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, is conscious of our presence through His organs 
of sense, and it is perfectly allowable to hold such a 
view. For this reason it will be useful for us to discuss 
the question. Although it is not a point revealed with 
certainty to the Church, yet the very discussion of it 
will help us to appreciate the depth of the glorious 
doctrine. Let us, then, see what can be said in favour 
of the opinion that in the Holy Eucharist, in some real 
sense, the organs of our blessed Lord are affected by 
our presence, as we kneel before Him, and that through 
them, as well as by His infused science, His human soul 
is made aware of our being there. 

In the first place, though we have begun by acknow- 
j ledging that the majority of theologians are against the 
view that our Lord can use His senses, yet those who 
are in favour of the opinion which we are considering, 
are some of the greatest names in theology, and we 
may well shelter ourselves under their authority. 

First and foremost amongst them is the seraphic 



132 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



doctor, St. Bonaventure * one whose admirable intellect 
excites our wonder the more we study him. So certain 
does it seem to him that our Lord uses His bodily senses 
in the Sacred Host, that he brings it forward as an 
argument to prove that all the matter of His Body is 
there in its integrity. Ct The Body of Christ," he says, 
e< in the Blessed Sacrament, both sees and hears, though 
He does not speak, in order not to reveal His presence. 
But the external senses presuppose quantity; therefore 
the quantity of His Body is there." 

Next comes Suarez,| perhaps the greatest of the 
second generation of schoolmen, after the lineage of St. 
Thomas and St. Bonaventure had died away. " There 
is no difficulty in supposing that, by the absolute power 
of God, the outward senses of our Lord in the Blessed 
Sacrament exercise their operations; and indeed it is 
not improbable that they do so with respect to the 
objects around them. God might supply the species 
Himself, or elevate the objects that they would have 
the power of producing them." 

Another great Jesuit theologian, Lessius, expresses 
the same opinion still more strongly. " It is very pro- 
bable that Christ, in the Eucharist, by His divine power, 
sees with His bodily eye the priest and the others who 
are present, and hears his voice. Since our Lord in 
this Sacrament dwells with us corporally, it is proper 
that He should hold intercourse with us through His 
bodily senses, and that He should not be there in a dull, 
dead manner."t 

Next comes one who may be called the last of the 

* In 4 dist. 10, Art. 1, 2. 

f Suarez, De Sacramentis, 53, 3. 

% Lessius ap Cienfuegos. Vita Abscondita, Disp. 2, Sect. 1, 2. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 133 

schoolmen, yet one who is ever most remarkably recur- 
ring to the opinion of the theologians of the first or 
medieval schools. Viva* not only holds, like the other 
writers of his Order whom I have noticed, that our 
Lord, by an exertion of His own supernatural power, 
can use His senses in the Blessed Sacrament, but he 
even gives it as his opinion, that our Lord sees and 
hears in the natural manner. He cites the Nominalist 
school for this view, as well as the Jesuit Father Ariaga, 
and he himself says: "It is not improbable that in the 
Eucharist the Lord Christ can use His eyes in the natu- 
ral manner to see neighbouring objects, for He has then 
all that is necessary for sight, which seems to be alluded 
to by the Spouse in the Canticles : Behold he standeth 
behind our wall, looking through the windows, looking 
through the lattice. Otherwise He would be there like a 
dead thing or a stone, which is unworthy of our Lord."f 

Cardinal Cienfuegosj: has devoted a great part of his 
Vita Abscondita to the proof of the opinion that our 
Lord can use His senses in the adorable Host, and thus 
introduces His view: U I assert the fact, that our Lord 
in the Eucharist carries on the operation of His senses, 
without determining whether He does so naturally, or 
by a miracle, or by immediate Divine power. I take 

* Viva, Part 7, Disp. 4, Qu. 7. 

f Viva seems to me to misquote Ariaga, who confines his view to the 
senses of taste and touch, on the ground that extension is not neces- 
sary to those two senses. Disp. 37, 5 : Nec dubito quin si vel inunico 
solo puncto manus poneret Deus miraculose intensissimum calorem eo 
ipso ille sentiendus esset per tactum ; ergo inextensio Christi in Eu- 
charista non irapediet sensationem tactus. This is curious, because 
the tendency of physiology is to reduce all the senses to that of touch. 
Spenser, " Principles of Physiology," p. 394. 

% Vita Abscondita, Disp. 2, sec. 1,1. 



134 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

for granted the possibility of it, whether it be in the 
natural order of things, as the Nominalists assert, or 
supernaturally. I prescind from the consideration, 
whether the aforesaid sensations are produced by means 
of species infused by God alone, or from the objects 
communicated by God, or else by the concurrence of 
Omnipotence, which thus supplies the place of species. 
I only assert that the fact, miraculous as it may be, is 
on a thousand counts most congruous, and even neces- 
sary, both for the honour of our Lord, who is there, as 
also for our profit; and for the ends on account of 
which this compendium of miracles was instituted by 
Him who is at once Omnipotence and Love." Then, 
going on to lay down the principle that, in point of 
fact, our Lord only uses those senses which are profit- 
able to us, without taking His Eucharistic presence out 
of the sphere of faith, he concludes that He both sees 
and hears, " because, from the knowledge that He does 
so, there is a vast increase in the love of the faithful, 
in their confidence and veneration for Him. Their 
intercourse with Him becomes almost divine. Their 
care to purify their conscience will be greater; and 
they will be still more anxious and make greater efforts 
to receive Him worthily. For, when I bethink myself 
that the Lord Christ sees me with His bodily eyes from 
the Host, and hears with His outward ears the prayers 
which are addressed to Him and the vows of His 
Church, how great an augmentation of faith accrues to 
me from this thought ! how is my love kindled, and 
how are my affections excited ! while deep reverence 
fills me with awe, and the spiritual sweetness or conso- 
lation flows into my soul." 

Cardinal Cienfuegos cites several celebrated theolo- 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 135 

gians for his opinion, but I am content with the great 
names which I have brought forward. I have said 
quite sufficient to show that, since the thirteenth cen- 
tury, there has been a permanent opinion in the Church 
that, whether naturally or by miracle, our Lord can see 
us from the Host with His bodily eyes, and hear us 
with His outward ears. 

The authority of many great theologians is, there- 
fore, clearly on our side. The received doctrines of 
the physiology of the senses have, however, been very 
much changed since the time of St. Bonaventure; let 
us see what can be made out from the present state of 
science, with regard to the possibilities of our Blessed 
Lord's keeping His powers of vision and hearing in the 
Sacred Host. I believe that we shall see that the case 
is stronger than ever for the opinion of the seraphic 
doctor. We shall see that, according to the present 
view, the formality of vision does not lie in the ex- 
tended image on the retina, but in the excitement of 
the optic nerve ; and that, therefore, by Divine power, 
the image may be dispensed with, yet the essential part 
of vision retained. The discussion will enable us the 
better to understand the language of the schoolmen, 
especially of Suarez, and also throw greater light on the 
theology of the life of our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament. 

Let us remember that we must not for a moment 
suppose that our Lord's organs are imperfect in the 
Blessed Sacrament. We should have not only an in- 
adequate, but a false idea of the doctrine of the Holy 
Eucharist, if we thought that any particle of the Body 
of Jesus is absent from the Host. It would, therefore, 
be wrong to suppose that there is anything resembling 
loss of sight in our Lord, from the imperfection of His 



136 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

organs. Again, His organs of sense are perfectly dis- 
tinct from each other. There is no confusion in them 
in the Holy Eucharist. It is true of the spiritual bocly ? 
as of the body in its natural state, that it is not one 
member, but many. Eye, hand, and ear are still as 
distinct as ever. In the Blessed Sacrament, also, the 
beautiful organism is not destroyed. If the limbs can- 
not be said to be in different places in the body, it is 
only because the notion of locality is inapplicable alto- 
gether, since it is taken out of the ordinary laws of 
space. They cannot, properly speaking, be said to be 
anywhere, because such expressions have reference to a 
state of things which have now passed away ; since our 
Lord's Body is now wholly in each portion of the Host, 
as the soul is wholly in each particle of the body. Im- 
possible, as it is, for us to understand how this can be, 
yet there is no more contradiction in it than in the no- 
tion of unextended matter at all. We have no expe- 
rience of body, except through the phenomenon* of ex- 
tension ; no wonder, therefore, that we cannot imagine 
what is the principle of distinction in its several organs, 
when unextended. Yet, let us remember, precisely the 
same difficulty exists with respect to the world of 
spirits. How marvellous a unity is the soul of man ; 
how utterly indivisible, so that there is within it no en- 
trance for disruption, no possibility of dissolution, no 
flaw in its oneness, through which separation can take 
place ! For this reason,, there is no death for it short of 
annihilation. Yet, in this unity, what a wonderful dis- 
tinction of faculties ! Out of the depths of the same 
spirit come acts of intelligence and will, or reasoning, 

* Vide Appendix F, On the use of the word " Phenomenon,'" 



THE LIFE OF JKSUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 137 



imagination, and memory : can there be no real distinc- 
tion between them. How often is faculty opposed to 
faculty, will in open revolt against reason, feeling set 
in battle array against conscience ! I cannot conceive 
conflict without diversity of faculties ; nor, when the 
results are so different, can I think that the power 
which elicits an act of love can be that which proves a 
syllogism. Even many of those who are slowest to 
admit a real distinction of faculties are compelled to 
distinguish between the substance of the soul, so inva- 
riably one, and its ever-varying phenomena, numberless 
as the moments of time. Again, the doctrine of latent 
mental activity implies a strange quality in the oneness 
of the spirit. We are authorized to believe that there 
must be real depths in the soul, profound as the apex 
of mystical writers, when philosophers speak of " spiri- 
tual treasures lying hid in its obscure recesses, beyond 
the sphere of consciousness, and of undeveloped power 
rushing out into the light in abnormal states of the 
soul."* All this points to complex powers amidst the 
unity of the human spirit. Indivisibility, then, is not 
absolute simplicity; and there is, at least, no contra- 
diction in supposing a distinction of organs in the unex- 
tended Body of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. Let 
us now see whether there is any improbability in the 
notion of the activity of these organs, which we have 
thus seen to be distinct. 

When we come to look more closely into the matter, 
we shall find that the real difficulty lies in the question, 
whether extended bodies can act upon the unextended 
organs of our Lord? There seems no reason why 

* See Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, 18. 



138 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

extension should be necessary to the activity of matter. 
As, however, we have seen that sensation is the result 
of the action of external bodies upon the organism, 
before the body of Jesus can feel in the Holy Eucha- 
rist, it is necessary that the extended objects around it 
should affect His senses. Before He can be said to see 
us, our form must, through the medium of light, have 
produced a sensation on the optic nerve. Is it possible 
for our bodies, which are in the ordinary state of corpo- 
real substance, thus to communicate with His Blessed 
Body, changed as it is by the miracle of Transubstan- 
tiation? This is the question to which we have now to 
address ourselves. 

First, though of course it is an impenetrable mystery 
to us how it should be so, yet, when we look into our 
own nature, it is impossible to suppose that there is 
anything improbable in the notion of the most intimate 
intercourse between an unextended and an extended 
thing. Do not soul and body act and react on each 
other? The immaterial spirit penetrates through and 
through the material frame by a union far closer than 
is possible between body and body. The very organs 
of sense which are under discussion can only see, hear, 
and feel, because they are animated and informed by 
the spirit. So close is their mutual action, that philoso- 
phy has exhausted itself in vain to show where the one 
begins and the other ends. The double activity blends 
into one; sensation melts insensibly into perception; 
nay, mind intrudes itself into the very initial act of sen- 
sation, and there seems to be no moment of time 
between the movement of the organ and the action of 
the soul. Here, then, we have an instance of the closest 
intercourse between an extended and an unextended 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 139 

thing; its non-extension, therefore,* can be no reason why 
the Body of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament should not 
receive impressions from our bodies. It is more natu- 
rally akin to them than is our immaterial soul to our 
corporeal frames; for, though it partakes of some of 
the modes of spirit, yet it is still material, and has neither 
consciousness nor intellect. Why, then, should not our 
presence affect His senses, in spite of its state in the 
Holy Eucharist? 

Secondly. Let us remember the theory of matter 
which was described in a former chapter. It necessa- 
rily breaks down the abyss which was supposed by some 
to exist between extended and unextended things. 
Extension becomes an accident, instead of being the 
essence of matter. It becomes more and more what 
Leibnitz called a phenomenon, one out of many appear- 
ances ; real, and yet relative to a present state of things 
which may easily pass away. According to this view, 
there is no difficulty in conceiving that a communication 
can be established between our bodies and the visual 
organs of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. If our 
bodies in the natural state, are really collections of 
unextended forces, they have already in them the capa- 
city of becoming spiritual bodies. They are more akin 
to the Body of our Lord in its Eucharistic state than 
according to the atomic theory. Stupendous as is the 
miracle of Transubstantiation, and utterly beyond all 
power but absolute Omnipotence, yet nature shows us a 
faint gleam of its possibility. It is true that it is not 
only beyond the present power of nature, but superna- 
tural in the strictest sense ; no possible created nature, 
raised even to its highest conceivable power, could be 
its cause ; yet we can have a faint idea how nature, 



140 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



moved by Omnipotence, can be its subject. In the same 
way, there seems nothing inconceivable in the notion of 
the Body of our Lord and its organs of sense being affected 
by our bodies after the great miracle has taken place. 

Again, let us not forget also how what we may call 
the immaterial tendencies of modern science manifest 
themselves, especially in all that concerns life and its 
operations, including the senses. Who is there now 
who looks upon life as a material thing? After all the 
efforts of the last century, to make life a function of 
the organism, a signal witness is borne to their failure 
by the constant tendency of scientific men to find some 
middle term, half matter and half spirit, to be the life of 
the body. No such theory could have been put forward 
with so small a chance of success, if it were not for the 
hopelessness of making out that the vital power is mate- 
rial. All the investigations of science have made one 
thing clear, that the matter of the body is in a perpetual 
flux. In an incredible short space of time, the blood, 
bone, nerves, all have been renewed. The body is like 
a cataract, which looks the same, and keeps evermore the 
same outward shape during its never-ceasing flow of 
centuries ; but the water which composes it is changing 
every instant. What more conclusive proof can there 
be that life is no material thing? The matter cannot 
be the life or active principle of the body, for life is one, 
while the matter is ever changing. And if the body 
requires a form to make it living, has any approach 
been made to a better theory of life, after all the efforts 
of the human intellect have been expended upon it, 
than the scholastic view, that the soul is the form of 
the body ? Even those who, in order to reduce life to 
a mere play of mechanical and chemical forces, declaim 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 141 



against the existence of a distinct vital force, forget 
that there is another alternative, and that they are only 
paving the way for the old animism of the schools.* 
But since the soul, an unextended thing, is immediately 
and by itself the life, the sole active principle of the 
body, we can understand it to be conceivable that exten- 
sion should not be absolutely necessary to the activity 
of the bodily organs. 

It is necessary to dwell upon this, because in our 
material views of life we are apt not to realize how 
living is Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. If, however, 
He is living, it seems very difficult to suppose that the 
exercise of all vital functions is suspended, unless it be 
clearly proved that the condition in which His body is 
placed in the Blessed Sacrament is incompatible with 
them all. The very definition of life includes activity. 
It is impossible to conceive of life except as including 
some vital acts. Now, it is difficult to see how our 
Lord's Body is not dead in the Blessed Sacrament, 
unless He in some way makes use of His senses.f Unless, 

* This passage was written before the last numbers of M. LeWes's 
Physiology had appeared. It is certainly very remarkable that the 
new science of physiology should have returned to St. Thomas's 
theory of the union of soul and body, which is, in fact, that of the 
Catholic Church. The Council of Vienne, and the Lateran Council 
under Leo X, both decided that the soul was, per se et essentialiter 
the form of the body, and the last condemnation of Gunther has 
repeated the same doctrine in far stronger terms. In order to under- 
stand the argument, the reader must remember that the form means 
the active principle, or, when used with respect to the body, the life. 
Vide Analecta Juris Pontifici, torn. 2, 1444; torn. 3, 244. 

f This is the argument of Cienfuegos, Vita Abs. Disp. 2, sect. 1, 14, 
19, 24. If it is answered that our bodies have other functions besides 
sensation, by which they could be said to live, I answer that those func- 
tions also in the natural state of the body require extension. If, then, 
they are present in the unextended body so also may sensation. 



142 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



then, sensation is impossible in an nnextencled body, 
there is strong reason for supposing that in some way 
our Lord's senses are exercised, even though that way 
is a mystery to us. Is extension then in such a sense 
necessary to sensation, that there should be a contradic- 
tion involved in the existence of the one without the 
other? 

As in the case of life, so in that of sensation, the ten- 
dency of modern science has been to refer it far less to 
mechanical causes, in other words, to diminish the 
importance of extended matter, and to increase that of 
mind and force. A comparison of the scholastic and 
recent views of the senses, will enable us both to under- 
stand the theories of Suarez and others, on the living 
powers of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, and also to 
see how much the difficulties which they saw in the 
notion of their continuance have been diminished. 

There is no more mysterious subject than the mode 
in which we obtain ideas through our senses. Take 
either side of the question, the physical or the spiritual, 
it is beset with difficulties. But when we come to unite 
the two, and try to see how the physical sensation passes 
into the intellectual idea, then indeed the utmost powers 
of our minds are taxed, and we feel that there are mys- 
teries in the depths of our own double nature, as incom- 
prehensible as in the nature of the angels. How do we 
obtain a knowledge of the outer world? How 7 does 
God's great universe, with its beautiful shapes, its 
musical sounds, and its sweet odours, make itself known 
to our souls? It is wonderful that our little organism 
should be susceptible of such strange power that w r e can 
take in the vast ocean at a glance, while its deep voice 
or its sweet murmurs soothe our inmost soul. How are 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 143 

all these wonders effected? The material world has to 
reach our immaterial spirit. It does so through the 
senses, which are themselves material. The question is 
how these material impressions are transmuted into 
thought; and above all, supposing this to be effected, 
what guarantee is there that this inner world of thought 
is, after all, the exact image of the great physical world 
which lies outside and around us. 

The scholastic system made it comparatively easy. 
The schoolmen considered that a series of copies are 
taken off the objects of sense, and thus the idea is the 
perfect representation of these objects. First, the 
object throws a material image of itself upon the organ 
of sense, perfect as the photograph on the iodized plate. 
This is transmitted to the imagination, and thus becomes 
a phantasm ; that is, an image such as memory calls up 
when we recall to ourselves a material scene which has 
made a vivid impression upon us. Up to this time the 
intellect has remained inactive; now it takes up the 
phantasm, and, under the guidance of principles innate 
in it, abstracts from it all that is accidental and parti- 
cular, and disengages from it the general idea which 
again is the exact likeness of the form which makes the 
object to be what it is. 

There is, however, no part of the scholastic system in 
which, justly or unjustly, modern thought has found 
so many imperfections as in its account of sensation. 
First, it accuses it of concealing with words the tre- 
mendous passage from the material to the intellectual. 
There is a yawning gulph from the phantasm to the intel- 
lectual species which no word can bridge over. How 
can an idea, a modification of the spirit, represent a 
material thing ? How is the thought of greenness in any 



144 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

way an image or a representation of a green landscape? 
All this is not explained. 

Secondly, the sensation itself, according to modern 
science, is in no way the copy of the object outside us. 
It is simply the excitement of the nerve-force in the 
particular nerve appropriated to the sense. Thus, " the 
act of seeing," says one author, " is a spontaneous flash- 
ing, a self- illumination of the nerve-substance of the 
retina of the eye."* " Our visual sensations are simply 
excited states of our sentient organism," says another. 
"We never see the objects themselves, we only feel 
the sensation or affection of our nerves." That affec- 
tion is indeed the effect of the qualities of the objects 
which fall on the external mechanism of the eye, and 
thus mediately excite the nerve ; and from it we infer, 
and rightly infer, the nature of the object. Still it is 
but an inference. Thus, curiously, the effect of 
modern science is by no means to materialize the opera- 
tion by which we know the outer world, but precisely 
the contrary. The mind is nowhere passive. This 
tremendous spiritual crucible is not content, as in 
the scholastic system, with quietly receiving phantasms. 
Its activity commences at once. The act of perception 
is immediate and simultaneous with the sensation itself .f 
The startled soul perceives instantly that the shock 
upon its organism comes from the non-ego, from some 
object out of itself. It collocates that object in space. 
The ideal field of vision is not the real one ; we infer 
immeasurable distance in the blue depth of the land- 
scape, while the real image on the retina is no bigger 

* Schubert, Geshichte der Seele, i. 289, Lewes's Physiology, Hi, 
335. 

t Hamilton, Lectures on Metaphysics, ii, 189. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 145 

than if we looked on a dead wall. Nay, spirit steps in 
to correct the impressions of sense, for science tells us 
that the representation of the universe on our visual 
organs is upside down, till mind comes in to correct the 
blunders of the eye* 

But a more important consideration for the subject 
which we are considering is furnished us by the 
physiology of vision. The great difficulty which is 
urged by the schoolmen who oppose the view of the 
Blessed Sacrament which I am advocating, consists in 
the indispensableness of material images to the formal 
idea of vision. Our Lord cannot see in the Sacred 
Host, because His organs are unextended, and because 
an extended image on the retina is absolutely essential 
to the very notion of sight. The part played by this 
material image, and consequently by the phantasm, in 
modern science, is, however, exceedingly subordinate. 
" The external apparatus of the eye is a mere mecha- 
nical instrument," says Sir William Hamilton ; " the real 
organ of sight is the optic nerves and their thalami."t 
" The formation of an image on the retina is the pre- 
cursor of a visual sensation ; but this image is not trans- 
mitted to the brain. That which, is in each case trans- 
mitted is the excited sensation."! We do not see the 
image at all, we only see by it. If this be true, several 
important considerations follow from it. If the excita- 
tion of the force of the optic nerve is all that is essen- 
tially vision, then the extended image may be done away 
with, and the sensation of sight be still produced. This 
destroys the objection made by many theologians to the 

* Kirke's Handbook of Physiology, 570. 

f Metaphysics, ii, 169. 

X Lewes's Physiology, ii, 329. 

L 



146 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

notion of the exercise of our Lord's senses, namely, the 
absolute necessity of the image to the formality of sight 
Though an indispensable condition of vision in the 
ordinary state of things, yet it is quite conceivable that 
it may be dispensed with, and its place supplied by 
Divine power, and yet the reality of sight be preserved. 
This will also enable us to complete the theory of Suarez 
with respect to the senses of our Lord in the Blessed 
Sacrament.* u Either," he says, u Divine interposition 
may supply the senses of our Lord with the species of 
surrounding objects, or may elevate the object so as to 
enable it to produce them." Translated into modern 
language, this would mean, that the power of God 
might produce the same effect on the optic nerve as 
though the image had been impressed on the retina, or 
the objects themselves of sight might be made imme- 
diately to affect these nerves, without the medium of 
the image. In either case Jesus might still be said to 
see us, because our presence would be the occasion of 
the sensation of sight, or something analogous to it, on His 
visual organs, or it would be its positive and direct cause. 

Nothing is impossible with God, and we might throw 
ourselves at once upon His Omnipotence. Yet, even 
here physiology shows us how the miracle is conceiv- 
able. In all God's physical world, there is, perhaps, 
nothing more marvellous than the nervous power which, 
as we have seen, is the essence of vision. In what 
category are we to place that most mysterious force 
generated among the labyrinthine meshes and the multi- 
tudinous strands of the living network of the nerves? 
Surely it belongs to that strange class of entities, about 



* Suarez, Disp. 53, sect. 3. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 147 

which scientific men doubt whether they can be called 
material, such as light or electricity. On purely physi- 
cal grounds I find men of science holding that ether, 
that wonderful element, the restless waves of which 
form the undulation of light, is immaterial ; and even 
those who are driven by the contradiction involved in 
the notion of immaterial vibrations to call it material, 
yet allow that it upsets all traditional notions of the 
nature of matter.* Surely that strange living force in 
the nerves, which makes our inmost being thrill to the 
most delicate impulses of the great life-stream of 
the outer world, must belong to the same category as 
light. It must be fully as subtle and as unextended. 
If this be true, the only difficulty which remains is the 
production of this force by the Body of our Lord in its 
unextended state in the Sacred Host. Of this, of 
course, we have no experience, yet none can say that it 
is inconceivable. We can also understand that the sti- 
mulant to its production should come from without, 
and that the forces of our bodies should directly and 
immediately excite it, without the medium of the mate- 
rial image. In this way our Lord would still be said 
to perceive our approach through the senses, since the 
same sensation would be raised by our presence in His 
Sacred Body, as would be excited if our image had 
been impressed on the retina of His eye. 

This is one way in which can be explained the mode 
in which the Sacred Humanity of our Lord can obtain 
a knowledge of the world around Him, through the 
Sacramental veil. But it is impossible to limit the power 
of God over the body and the soul which He has made. 



* Revue Germanique, December, 1858, 594, 597. 



148 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



In a thousand ways the forces of nature may stream in 
upon the vital powers of Jesus, even though the outer 
organs of the sense may be closed. Some theologians 
use language on the subject strikingly in harmony with 
other theories, which open up before us strange vistas 
of the mysterious powers which lie within our own 
being. They speak of the inner senses of our Lord 
being affected by divine power in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, so that, without the intervention of the outer 
organs, surrounding objects may make their presence 
known directly and immediately to the spirit within. 
Even in physical science we hear of "a function being 
independent of its organ ;"* and I need scarcely point 
to the strange powers suddenly developed in the body 
by some states of mysterious disease, which seems to be 
accompanied by new modes of communication with the 
outer world. Or to turn to a far different sphere, are 
not new powers equivalent to new senses developed in 
the very bodies of saints by the supernatural faculties 
of their souls, so that they can see into the very heart 
of the outer world, and communicate with its powers 
in ways beyond the sphere of our ordinary organs of 
sense? All these thoughts will make us pause before 
we limit the power of Jesus over His own body and 
His soul in the Holy Eucharist. It may have inner 
senses and new vital powers, which may be divinely 
brought into play, and enable Him to hold intercourse 
with us through more direct channels, and so to dis- 
pense with the aid of the outer organs of sensation. 

Such is the case for the opinion that our Lord in the 
Blessed Sacrament has the power of using His senses, 

* Milne Edwards, quoted by Lewes, " Sea-side Studies," 408. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 149 

and is, through them, perfectly conscious at the moment 
of uniting Himself to us in the Holy Communion. All 
these reasons made me strongly incline to the opinion 
I have here advocated, and which many great theolo- 
gians have held. One thing, however, is clear from 
what has been said, whether, through His senses or not, 
Jesus is in possession of His faculties in the Blessed 
Sacrament ; if not through experimental science, at least, 
by His infused science, or through the beatific vision 
He knows and He loves us then. 

Above all, let us learn to master the idea that Jesus 
is living in the Blessed Sacrament. In the whole range 
of that marvellous kingdom of life, from the life of 
the smallest living thing in the depths of the sea, up 
through the glorious existence of Mary to the ever- 
living God, there is none more wonderful than that 
which is lived in the narrow circle of the Host. 

First, there is the everlasting life of God the Father, 
Son, and Holy Ghost, unchanging and unchangeable, 
with all its necessary operations of intellect and love, 
and its free dispensations with respect to creatures. 

Secondly, there is the life of Jesus, the Eternal 
Word in His assumed human nature ; but in that one 
sacramental life He lives two separate lives, the glorious 
one of heaven, the wonderful one which peculiarly 
belongs to the Blessed Sacrament. It is a Blessed prison- 
house, that wondrous Host. There is the beatific vision ; 
but besides the vision of God, Jesus has brought down 
with Him from heaven the whole of His glorified state. 
This is His inalienable prerogative, burned into His 
soul and body by the fiery power of the Godhead. It 
must, therefore, necessarily accompany Him down to 
earth. 



150 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 



There is another continually varying life, with mani- 
fold chancres of love, feeling, and intellect, floating over 
His soul, over which we have influence, and which 
corresponds to all that is going on in the breasts of the 
worshippers around. Every breath of our prayer, every 
aspiration of our love, every sigh of our agony, stirs 
the mighty ocean of the love of Jesus in the Blessed 
Sacrament. Oh ! wondrous life of Jesus. However 
profoundly He may be hidden from our sight, yet He 
is open to all that passes around Him, so that His 
various kinds of science are all attention to catch the 
slightest wish of any one of us who visits Him, and His 
heart is tremblingly alive to the whispered accent of 
our love. So deep is His concealment that, according 
to most theologians,* no created eye even of the highest 
saint can penetrate into the recesses of the Host, or see 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, while others make a 
single exception in favour of Mary, who can there gaze 
with an eye of love upon her Babe of Bethlehem in His 
new swaddling-clothes. Yet, though His disguise is so 
perfect that the frail species are like a wall of adamant 
sheltering Him from all creation, it is so pervious to 
our prayers that the slightest whisper reaches Him 
behind the veil. Whether it be true or not that 
He can perceive us with His bodily senses, it is un- 
doubtedly certain, that even through the closed door 
of the tabernacle His inward ear hears, and His inward 
eye sees us. His infused science knows us; by a special 
exertion of His power He can cause His soul to be con- 
scious of our presence even by acquired knowledge. 
When we enter into a church, and come before the 

* Vide authorities cited, Cienfuegos, Disp. 2, sec. 1,1. 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 151 

Blessed Sacrament, all heaven bestirs itself at our 
approach. The angels around Him, watching before 
the tabernacle, whisper to Him of us. The science by 
which He knew us, even when in Mary's bosom, attends 
to our prayers. If by no other means, at least by 
sympathy with its acts in heaven, His intellect in the 
Host recognises His sinful child. His old human love, 
intensified by the burning fire of the Godhead, gushes 
out from His heart.* All this is true, even supposing 
it were as certain that His senses were closed to our 
approach, as we believe it to be probable that His eye 
discovers us, and His ears are physically affected by our 
prayers. 

Thus, then, we can trace the operations of that won- 
drous life. We know what He is doing. So passion- 
ately does He love earth and its guilty race, that He 
comes down from heaven to live over again the life He 
lived on earth. He adapts Himself to all the wants and 
circumstances of the souls which come before Him. 
When a sinner approaches to kneel before Him, He is 
again at once the Good Shepherd. From the depths of 
the tabernacle there come to our hearts sweet whis- 
pered words, such as He spoke to the woman of Sama- 
ria by Jacob's well. No noontide sun can now fatigue 
Him with its burning rays ; no thirst can parch His lips, 
and make Him long for the cool, clear water. Instead 
of being beneath the cloudless eastern sky, pouring 
down its fierce light upon the mountains of Ephraim, 
He is on His altar in the tranquil church. But His 
heart is the same. The lights and shadows on the hills, 
covered with vines and olives, the solitary valley, the 



* Vide Suarez, Disp. 53, 3 ; De Lugo, De Sacr. Disp. 6, sec. 2. 



152 THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 

expanse of green corn, and the gushing fountains, are 
nothing to Him now. But the thirst for souls remains. 
How many human beings stained with sin, like that 
guilty woman, come to Him there ! Yet, though He is 
God, they do not shrink from pouring out before Him 
the tale of all their guilt, which they would rather die 
than have known by their nearest and dearest on earth. 
He knows it all already, and He tells them so with such 
kindness from the Blessed Sacrament, that He wins 
them back to Himself, and pours unmerited peace on 
their passion-stricken hearts. How many a mourner 
comes to Him, and He soothes them as He was wont to 
do upon earth ! He whispers to them that He it was who 
sent the affliction, who took their dear ones away, and 
can they doubt that it was in love ? Is not He to them 
father and mother, brother, sister, spouse ? Oh ! blessed 
Lord, earth would be unbearable if Thou wert not with 
us in the Blessed Sacrament. Life, with all its tempta- 
tions and sorrows, with the chance of hell at the end, 
would be too awful if Thou didst not live amongst us. 

Above all, this gives us a clear notion of what is 
Holy Communion. It is the union with the living 
Jesus, and its result is the infusion of the life of Jesus 
into us. What a comment is all this upon the words of 
Jesus — u He that eateth me shall live by me." " I am 
the Bread of Life." " My flesh is meat, indeed, and 
my blood is drink, indeed. He that eateth my flesh 
and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me and I in him. 
As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the 
Father, so he that eateth me, the same shall live by 
me." When I think of Holy Communion, I can only 
look upon it as the antitype to the miracle of old, when 
the prophet stretched himself upon the child, and 



THE LIFE OF JESUS IN THE BLESSED SACRAMENT. 153 

applied his mouth, eyes, and hands on the mouth, hands, 
and eyes of the dead. His heart is applied to ours, and 
communicates to it that fire which He longed so touch- 
ingly to kindle upon earth. No earthly union can com- 
pare with this blending of two lives into one, this infu- 
sion of the life of Jesus into ours. O Lord Jesus, 
evermore give us this Bread, that we may live for ever, 
since the Bread which Thou dost give us is Thy flesh, 
which Thou hast given for the life of the world. 



154 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 



The Holy Communion, as we have seen, is the union 
of the living Jesus with the soul. We have considered 
one term of this union; we know what is the part of 
our Lord in this great action. We have now the other 
term to consider — our own little soul. We, too, are 
living. Each one of the thousands upon thousands of 
communicants who present themselves on any given 
morning throughout the Church, to receive their Lord, 
is a human body and soul, with human hopes and fears ; 
nay, human passions and human sins. Each one goes 
back to his work, the rough, homely work of the 
world ; each is lost and confounded amidst the waves 
of the great life-stream of earth. The labourer goes 
to the field, the mother to her children, the factory-girl 
to the mill, the merchant's clerk to his desk, the soldier 
to the camp, the lady to the world. And this seems to 
be the most wonderful part of the working of Jesus in 
the Blessed Sacrament. It is called angels' food, be- 
cause it is the God upon the sight of whom angels live ; 
but it is really adapted for all the purposes of human 
life. It does not nurture only anchorets and nuns. 
The love of our Blessed Lord is not only given to the 
holy and pure, but to the worthless and the vile. They 
are in a state of grace at the time, but they are going 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 155 

back into the world. Poor, sick, wounded souls, their 
warfare is not over, and many a battle they will have 
to fight before the last viaticum. 

This is ever to be borne in mind when we speak of 
the Blessed Sacrament, and it is too often forgotten. 
It is but a common-place observation to make, that the 
Holy Communion is meant not for angels but for men, 
but it is very necessary ever to remember it. Let us, 
therefore, in considering its effects upon the soul, espe- 
cially observe its adaptation to the wants of man. 

The union of Jesus with the soul in the Blessed 
Sacrament evidently could not stop with itself. He 
could not come and go away, and not leave a blessing 
behind Him. The actual union with our Lord is short. 
Those blessed moments are but too brief. For the 
very reason which I have touched upon just now it 
cannot last. We must go back to our work. We must 
leave the tranquil church, and go out into the streets 
of the great wicked town. We must plunge into the 
roar of its stormy life, and take our part in the wild 
tumult of human affairs. For this reason it could 
hardly be that our Lord should remain with us long. 
The species follow the ordinary laws of human food, 
and as soon as they are consumed in the living furnace 
of the human frame, our Lord's Body disappears and 
leaves us. Perhaps we may see by and by that the 
union with Him does not always terminate as com- 
pletely as we suppose, but, at all events, the Body of 
Jesus ceases altogether to be within us. At the same 
time, its effects remain permanently, and, if we choose, 
to all eternity ; and these effects are graces of various 
kinds. 

We are sorely wounded by the fall, and we want 



156 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 



help of a very peculiar kind. Never let us forget that 
our free-will itself is wounded. It is quite true that 
we are free ; but it is true also that our free-will is 
miserably weak. In spite of our will and energetic 
resolve, if left to ourselves we fall; we do things for 
which we hate and loathe ourselves. It is useless to 
such a being, merely to enlighten and refine him. He 
wants something more than light, natural or superna- 
tural. He wants strength, interior strength. Strange, 
inexplicable being, so high and }^et so low, with an 
ideal so noble before his mind, and a reality so con- 
temptible; with such a keen sense of the beauty of 
virtue, and of the degradation of guilt, yet ever doing 
things which fill him with the bitterest remorse ! How 
eloquently he can discourse of virtue, how bitterly he 
feels the shame of sin ; yet this very feeling of shame, 
while it bears testimony to the goodness of his heart, 
serves not to keep him from the commission of sin, but 
to drive him to madness and despair when he has com- 
mitted it. It is true that he has brought all his 
faculties safe with him out of the fall; reason, will, 
understanding, all are there, but how wofully dis- 
graced, how terribly wounded ! We are free, yet we 
are the slaves of sin. Our freedom is just sufficient to 
fill us with the deepest and most legitimate shame; it 
never by itself could keep us from sin in the long run. 
To such creatures as we are the mere preaching of 
motives is a mockery. What we require is the inward 
strengthening of our natural powers. We want a 
tonic to go through and through our spirit, to brace up 
our languid will. The mere external offering of 
eternal life is utterly inefficient. A power from heaven 
must move within us, down in the very central depths 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 157 

of our being. It must take the initiative ; the very 
wish for it must come from without. We may pray, 
but the very prayer comes from God ; a touch from God 
must, without forcing us, excite our soul with a sort of 
physical impulse, as when God first launched a planet 
into space. And if we are ever to aspire to heaven, 
besides keeping from sin, we must have a new nature 
superadded to, although engrafted on, the old. It 
comes to us from without, but in order that it may be 
our own, it must be within the very substance of the 
soul, and infuse itself into all its powers. Now this, 
which is at once light, health, and new life, is grace. 

We see at once that the chief fountain of grace 
is the Blessed Sacrament. Other Sacraments infuse 
streams of grace into our souls, but here is He who 
holds within Himself the very plenitude of all. And 
that this is no rhetorical figure, will be plain if we 
only think how and when this precious grace is gene- 
rated. 

Let us never forget that grace is a real entity, a spiri- 
tual thing, like the soul or an angel. It is not only a 
good thought or an illumination ; it is more like a faculty 
such as reason or imagination, and is only not a sub- 
stance, because it never stands alone like a soul, but 
belongs to an already existing being. Spirit is to the 
full as substantial as matter, and the spirit- world con- 
tains wonders which we must not presume to limit. If, 
then, grace is a piece of God's creation as real as a plant 
or a flower, we may ask ourselves how and when it 
comes into being; and the answer is, that since the 
Incarnation the Sacred Humanity is the instrument 
through which all grace comes into existence. Men 
have wearied themselves with endless enquiries, as to 



158 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

how thoughts are generated, and what is the origin of 
their ideas. Let us think for a moment on a more im- 
portant subject — the production of grace. 

There is an imperial power in God (I am using 
language which has long been forgotten, but which is 
common in the old schoolmen) by which in His Omni- 
potence He can command any one of His creatures to 
do Him any service that He pleases. As by an original 
act of creation, He brought it into being out of nothing 
by a mere act of His will, so by another act of this same 
will He can bid that nature do what He chooses, and it 
obeys Him, however highly above its powers He may 
tax it. Even the dead matter rises up and does His 
bidding as if it had intelligence; for He who is 
Almighty can give it power to become the instrument 
of His sovereign will. I do not see how any one who 
believes in creation can deny to God the power of work- 
ing anything He pleases out of anything that He has 
made ; yet it is like making restitution to God of a lost 
attribute to speak of what the schoolmen call the obe- 
diental capacity of the creature, by which it is made 
capable by God of becoming His instrument in any act 
that He may require of it. In this case, God need not 
respect nature ; however unfitted the matter for the re- 
quired purpose, yet He can call forth from it whatever 
He pleases, above or even against its nature. The school- 
men, it is true, place certain bounds to this power which 
are not really limits, because they only amount to 
saying that God cannot do what is self-contradictory, 
as He can do no wrong. He could not, for instance, 
confer upon a stone the power of thought, because 
matter means that which cannot think, yet he would be 
a bold man who would venture to say that God could 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 159 

not make a material thing the instrument of thought, 
for do we not in this sense think with our brain? 

But of all created things there is none which is so 
infinitely wonderful an instrument as the Sacred 
Humanity, united as it is to the Divine Word. It was 
meet that all honour should be done to the Body and 
Soul of God. For this reason it is that a certain omni- 
potence is ascribed to it. Miracles were wrought by it. 
There was a physical outpouring of virtue from it, just 
as some precious drug pours out a sweet influence 
through all the veins and nerves of a languid frame. 
Hence it was that the dead obeyed His will and 
came forth from their graves, not only because God, 
hearing His prayer, sent life into the lifeless form, but 
because their came an Almighty power from His lips 
at which hell trembled, and which even death obeyed. 
The touch of His hand sent the life-blood through the 
veins of the young girl, and made her heart beat anew. 
It restored the living youth to his widowed mother's 
arms. And when the poor woman came behind Him, 
and touched the hem of His garment, she was healed at 
once, because the very contact with His Body gave to 
His clothes a physical power of conferring health. He 
says Himself that He felt virtue going out of Him. 
The Omnipotence of God resided in His Sacred Flesh, 
and made it its instrument for the generation of this 
virtue and the channel through which it flowed. 

It is only by an extension of this wonder that the 
Sacred Humanity of Jesus was made to be the great 
fountain of all grace. It was due to the Soul which 
for our sakes felt so desolate, and to the Body which 
suffered such agony, that they should co-operate not 
only meritoriously, but efficaciously to our salvation. 



160 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

In this way it is that the very red Blood of Christ, as it 
exists now in His veins in heaven, and is poured from 
His throbbing heart throughout His frame, can be said 
to wash us from our sins, because it causes grace in us.* 
In this way it is that Jesus is the Head of His Church , 
and pours throughout His body all the supplies of 
grace which make His members live. It is thus that 
He is the Head, from which all the Body, by joints and 
bands being supplied with nourishment and compacted, 
groweth into the increase of God.f And we are 
expressly told that the whole Sacred Humanity has its 
share in the production of grace. It is the whole liv- 
ing Jesus, Body and Soul, who is the Head of the 
Church. 

I need not say how intimately this unites us to our 
Lord, and what a glory it sheds upon Him ! Think of 
the multitudinous graces which are being poured from 
heaven at every moment of time, at every point of the 
earth ; all these come from Jesus. There is no creature 
in pagan lands so savage but grace visits him. Turks, 
heretics, and infidels, hear sweet whispers of grace in 
their souls, for are not all redeemed by the precious 
Blood? What shall we say, then, to Christendom? 
What imagination can picture to itself the quantity and 
the variety of grace which is flowing there? Daily and 
hourly sacraments are being administered in countless 
churches, and each one would be powerless if it were 
not for Jesus. The words of the priest would be a 
mockery if they were not really His ; and the actions 
of the Church would cease to be sacramental if they 
were not done by Him. The voice of the priest is 



* Viva, part 7, Disp. 2, qu. 23. 



f Col., ii, 19. 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 



161 



really the voice which absolved the Magdalene, other- 
wise it would be but human breath. Not only, how- 
ever, is this true, because Jesus has merited them for 
us, but the grace which is in them absolutely proceeds 
from Him, and is the production of the Sacred 
Humanity. The grace in these countless absolutions is 
the present produce of His Precious Blood. Matter 
and form, sacraments of the living and dead, are only 
what they are because grace flows into them from His 
wounded side. The baptism of the infant, and the 
unction of the dying, all come from Him. Add to this 
the perfectly innumerable actual graces which go into 
the deep heart and have no outward sign, light for the 
spiritually blind, sweet tears for the hardened, contri- 
tion for the sin-stained, all these come from Jesus. In 
the drawing-rooms of the worldly, in dens of shame and 
crowded streets, in prison solitudes, graces are ever 
flowing, and all come from Jesus. He feels them all 
and is conscious of what is going on ; they are virtues 
going out of Him. 

If this be true, no bounds can be set to the graces 
flowing into our hearts from the Blessed Sacrament. 
Here we have the very Body which wrought all these 
miracles of old ; the hand which raised Jairus' daughter, 
the feet which shrank not from the embrace of the 
Magdalene; hands and feet still marked with the 
glorious wounds gained in redeeming us, while the open 
side is pouring out its treasures of grace upon our 
own beating hearts near which it lies. Here again we 
have the Soul which vivified and animated the Body, 
and which makes it living still. Oh ! faithless hearts, 
what grace can He refuse you now? Heart to heart, 
soul to soul, Jesus is with you. In other sacraments 

M 



162 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

we have some streams of His grace; here the very ocean 
itself from which these streams are derived is within 
your bosom. In other sacraments you have the 
produce of the Precious Blood, directly derived and 
generated from it ; in the Holy Communion we have 
the Precious Blood itself locally within us. With 
respect to the other sacraments, different schools have 
doubted whether they act as the physical causes of 
grace, or only as morally, though infallibly connected 
with it; but few can help holding that, in the Blessed 
Sacrament, at least grace flows from Jesus as from a 
fountain into our souls. While His divine eyes are 
fixed upon us, streams of grace are gushing forth from 
His five open wounds. 

How wonderfully is all this adapted to our wants ! 
How humbly He deals with us ! No mother could 
treat more tenderly the child of her love. The con- 
scious, living Jesus is there to give to each individual soul 
the measure and the kind of grace adapted for it. 
Thus it is that the Blessed Sacrament is given to all 
Christians of whatever proficiency in grace. It is 
living food, and adapts itself to the requirements of 
each. None are ever excluded from it, it is the joy 
of the saint, the medicine of the sinner. No race of 
savages are so sunk and degraded as to be thrust aside 
from the altar. The outcasts from society can still 
receive their God. No sin so black, no dishonour so 
complete, as to deprive the soul of Holy Communion. 
The convict in the hulks or on the eve of execution, 
can still communicate ; the sole condition is the state of 
grace, no matter how low it may be. And in each 
case the soul receives precisely the measure and the 
kind of grace which suits its need, because the Blessed 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 163 

Sacrament is the living Lord who adapts the grace to 
the requirements of each. Surely, then, Holy Com- 
munion is a marvellously contrived instrument, since it 
conforms itself so flexibly to the wants of the human 
race. 

Let us now examine in order the various kinds of 
grace which come to us through the Blessed Sacrament, 
as far as they are known and can be described. 

First, then, as is the case with every sacrament, the 
Holy Communion gives us an increase of sanctifying 
grace. As in order to approach our Lord we must be 
in a state of grace— that is, already have sanctifying 
grace within us, the Holy Communion only augments 
what is already there. In some instances, indeed, it 
may accidentally and rarely give us the first grace ; 
this is not, however, what it was meant to do, and it 
need not be considered just now. Nor can this increase 
of sanctifying grace be the special grace of Holy Com- 
munion, since it is not peculiar to it, but exists also in 
the case of the other six sacraments. At the same time 
it will be necessary to say something of it, for it is by 
no means to be lightly estimated. 

Sanctifying grace is the participation in the nature 
of God. We know what our own nature is. It is a 
definite thing, with definite powers. By virtue of our 
nature we are what we are, and we are not brutes or 
plants. It is at once the source and the limit of our 
strength. If any man would know how real is his 
nature, let him try to do something above it. Let him 
attempt to master some subject of thought which is 
above and beyond human power; at every effort he 
finds himself stopped by a dead wall. He may chafe 
and foam like the sea, dashing itself with force against 



164 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

a rock of adamant; but some one has said, so far shalt 
thou go and no further, and after all his struggles he 
will find himself where he was before. At the same 
time, by virtue of this same nature, there are things 
which he can do. We can feel, think, and will. We 
never saw our nature, but we know that it is a reality. 

Now, grace is a new nature which God has given us, 
just as real as the old one. By virtue of it we can do 
things which we could not do before. We can believe 
by faith in an unseen God, and all that He has revealed ; 
we can hope for heaven; we can love God above all 
things. Sanctifying grace is the root of these new 
powers, precisely as the soul is the root of our reason 
and our will. Above all, it is a participation of God's 
nature, because when all obstacles to its exercises are 
removed, it will enable us to do what God alone can 
naturally do. 

God alone can know God as He is. Is not all know- 
ledge gained through likeness in nature to the thing 
known? Visible things stream in upon our senses 
because we are akin to them. With our bodies we 
touch that great world; they are made of the same 
matter as other earthly things. They can be reduced to 
the same elements as plants and inanimate things. All 
the upper forces of nature, light, heat, electricity, are 
our fellows, and because we participate in their nature 
we know them. In the same way we know intellect, 
because we, too, are rational. In a word, we know 
a thing in as far as we participate in its nature. In 
proportion as our nature is different, knowledge sinks 
into guesswork ; we cannot see the realities of things 
to which we are not in some w r ay akin by nature. 

For this reason God alone can by nature know God 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 165 

as He is, for no nature can be like the Godhead. If, 
therefore, we are ever to see God, something must be 
given to us over and above nature, something beyond 
what heart can think or tongue can tell. A new nature 
must be given to us, which makes us akin to God, and 
it is through its new faculties and powers that, when 
God unites Himself to us in heaven, the sight of God 
will stream in upon our souls, as the outer world comes 
in through the senses. 

Now this new nature is sanctifying grace. What 
then can be more precious? We should treasure it up 
like very misers. Each little augmentation of it, how- 
ever small, will influence our eternity. In consequence 
of it, we shall know more of God, and we shall love Him 
more for ever and ever. We shall see deeper down 
into that illimitable Godhead, and the Godhead itself 
will flow more copiously into the centre of our being. 
We shall embrace Jesus more closely. We shall be 
nearer Mary. A new degree of grace may raise us up 
into another hierarchy of angels. But it is enough for 
us to know that for each augmentation of sanctifying 
grace we shall have a new power of loving God ; a 
brighter light will illuminate us to know God by, a 
hotter name will burn in our hearts to love Him with. 

This then is the first effect of Holy Communion. 
While Jesus is with us, there gush out of His Sacred 
Heart upon us fresh streams of sanctifying grace. It 
does not ebb and flow like other graces ; it remains with 
us to all eternity, unless we forfeit it by mortal sin, and 
even then its effects return when we are absolved. It 
goes on silently increasing in our souls. Each good 
action intensifies it; each sacrament augments it; but 
neither merit of good works, nor any of the other sacra- 



166 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 



ments, augments it like the Holy Communion, which 
contains within it Jesus, God and Man. 

As has already been said, the increase of sanctifying 
grace cannot be the special effect of the Holy Eucharist, 
because all sacraments possess this property in common. 
Each sacrament has also a grace peculiar to itself, called 
its sacramental grace, and we must now go on to study 
this special grace of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Our dear Lord, who knew us so well, knew that some- 
thing more was wanted to secure our salvation than to 
bestow upon us new powers. It is one thing to have a 
power, another thing to use it. Even in our old nature 
God has given us wonderful faculties, and how have 
we let them run to waste ! No fault is to be found 
with the intellect which God has bestowed upon us. 
There are powers of generous love enough hidden in 
human nature to do great deeds, if we choose. But the 
moment that intellect and will exist in the concrete, the 
moment they become the property of a distinct human 
personality, they seem to be smitten with a blight, and 
what seemed so fair and strong, turns out on trial to be 
falsehood and weakness itself. We have traitors within, 
and the strong power of mighty passion sweeps away 
the most rational resolves. Thus it fares with sanctify- 
ing grace. There are ever two terms in all sacraments ; 
the mighty, loving God, pouring graoe into the soul, 
and the poor creature using it as he chooses. They do 
not deal with dead matter, but with living souls ; and 
this is precisely what is so grand and beautiful about 
them. The saving of a soul is not a work like the 
sculpturing of cold, rigid marble. Our Lord has to do 
Avith living, breathing souls, with all their passions and 
their sins ; with flesh and blood which will not lie still, but 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 167 

palpitates and moves, and has a will of its own, while 
He is graciously working on it for its good. This is 
what scandalizes the desperate Pharisaism of the world ; 
it will have all smooth, decorous, and infallible; while 
the great skill of God in those sacraments lies precisely 
in His having to deal with souls which, resist His very 
Omnipotence. The waywardness, the caprice, the 
obstinate wickedness, the strong passions, the misplaced 
affections, which make up human nature, have all to be 
taken into account, and legislated for. 

Once more, then, sanctifying grace is not enough. 
The soul has got to act with it. Habits of faith, hope, 
and charity are there, but will the possessor use them? 
They have yet to be stimulated into action. Precisely, 
then, as our intellect lies dormant in the recesses of our 
soul till, by our own act, it is roused to reflection ; so 
sanctifying grace, with its attendant virtues, requires 
the stimulus of actual grace to make it lead to practical 
results in our conduct. What, then, are the actual 
graces which are given us by the Blessed Sacrament? 

There are a few golden words of St. Thomas* which 
tell us more of the working of the Blessed Sacrament 
than whole volumes of theology. 16 This Sacrament 
confers grace with the virtue of charity." Wherefore 
St. John Damascene compares it to the live coal of fire 
which Isaias saw. This coal was not simply coal, but it 
was united to fire ; so the bread of Holy Communion is 
not simply bread, but it is joined to the Godhead. 
Now, St. Gregory says, " Wherever the love of God is, 
it is never idle ; if it exist at all it must work." There- 
fore, by this Sacrament not only is the habit of charity 



* Summa, 3, 79, 1 . 



168 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

given to us, but it is stimulated to act. The love of 
Christ urgeth us. And for this reason it is that by this 
Sacrament the soul is spiritually refreshed, because 
spiritual joy comes over it, and it is in some way intoxi- 
cated with the sweetness of the Divine goodness, 
according to these words of the Canticles, " Friends eat 
and drink, and be intoxicated, O dearest ones." Accord- 
ing to St. Thomas, then, the peculiar virtue of the 
Holy Communion lies in its making habitual charity 
break out into actual, in its producing within us acts of 
love. 

If there be one passion more than another which 
rules the heart of man, it is love. All things are easy 
so long as we love ; all things hard without it. Love 
makes the coward brave, and the effeminate hardy. 
How mighty is the strength of merely human love ! 
If it be misplaced, how terrible ! but take it in its purest 
state, the love of a mother for her child, it is heroic and 
enduring, tranquil, and yet passionate. Man is the 
most selfish of beings till he loves, and then how 
devoted and self-forgetting ! You may preach to him 
for ever, and you will not rouse him; but let him once 
love, and the creature lately so wrapped up in self all 
at once becomes the most unselfish of men. Love is 
essentially a sacrifice ; it does not exist unless it is ready 
to be a victim for the being who is loved. The sense 
of duty and conscientiousness can lead us but a little 
way ; but love is stronger than death. Now, it is this 
very love which it is so hard to make us feel towards 
God. Oh ! how little love of God there is in the world ! 
How many ever make a sacrifice for God ! They are 
few enough who do what they are obliged ; it would be 
easy to count those who do more. The difference 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 169 

between a saint and another Christian lies in the degree 
of disinterested love. When we read the lives of saints, 
we, poor creatures, shudder at what they have under- 
gone for God. We shrink with terror when we read 
of tender virgins who suffered shame, lingering tortures, 
death for Jesus ; to them it was all easy on account of 
their fiery, passionate love. 

Yet there is one moment, when we feel that we could 
do anything for God; one moment, when our cold 
hearts burn with strange, unwonted fires. That moment 
is the time of communion. Unhappily, it is but too 
short ; yet, do not think it unreal. It does not come 
from ourselves, it comes from Jesus. It is the habit of 
charity breaking out into act under the influence of the 
Blessed Sacrament. Sanctifying grace lay dormant 
down in some depth of our souls, till fire fell from 
heaven and kindled it, and all at once the cold, selfish 
bosom glows with flame to which it has long been a 
stranger, and which astonishes itself. Then it is that 
things appear easy, which but a short time before were 
impossible to our sluggish, cowardly nature. We are 
raised above ourselves, as though wings were given to 
us ; and we wonder at finding powers of love within us 
of which we did not before suspect the existence. All 
this is owing to the sacramental grace of the Blessed 
Sacrament. Jesus Himself produces these acts within 
us. He knows so well the secret springs which move 
our hearts, that he can infallibly excite these acts of 
love, and yet leave us free. The obedient spirit answers 
to the touch of the God who made it, and is kindled 
into acts of love. 

I need not point out how wonderfully all this is 
adapted to the wants of a nature weak, and in all that 



170 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

has to do with heaven, inert as ours. Our Lord touches 
the very mainspring of it when he stirs up within it the 
sources of love. There is, however, one peculiarity 
about our Lord's operations in the Blessed Sacrament 
which we must not forget to notice, and that is, that 
they are sensible. 

It is a peculiarity of our human soul that we are 
swayed to an incredible extent by our feelings. It would 
almost seem as though the mobility of its feelings dis- 
tinguished our strange, impressionable nature from that 
of the angels. They are the various emotions of our 
moral being making themselves sensible ; body and soul 
concur in their formation. When the deep nature of a 
strong man is moved, and he lifts up his voice and 
weeps, we say that he evinces feeling; and so in every 
case where the frame is shaken with emotion, when joy, 
and hope, and love, make the heart beat and the colour 
rise ; or when we grow pale with grief or fear, our feel- 
ings are said to manifest themselves. On the other 
hand, the body takes it revenge upon the soul. How 
much do our spirits, high or low, depend on our body ! 
The forces of the outer world act upon the nerves, and 
these again upon the soul; so that we find ourselves 
dispirited and discouraged, we know not why. When 
no outward causes of discouragement meet the eye and 
ear, then the feelings act upon the fancy, and stir up 
within us gloomy and terrible images. It is impossible 
to believe that the bodiless nature of the angels can be 
affected like ours. Deep, unchanging, and desperate is 
the hate of a fallen angel, without the stormy rise and 
the sudden subsidence of human rage; while the love 
and the pity of a seraph are calm and peaceful, without 
the tenderness and the passionateness of men. It is this 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 171 

which makes the character of our Lord so human, the 
deep and tender feeling which He is ever showing. He 
weeps human tears, and complains of desertion; He 
turns pale with fear, and falls prostrate with sorrow 
unto death. 

On the other hand, how seldom it is that the souls of 
the generality of mankind are moved to any feeling 
about God. Notwithstanding the exquisite pathos of 
His appeals in the old Testament, notwithstanding His 
wrestling with men as man, and His drawing us with the 
cords of Adam, nay, after that tenderness displayed in 
the Incarnation, which human language wants words 
to express, yet how hard it is to most men to feel 
any emotion about God ! It is partly owing to our 
(sense of unworthiness. How can a creature wdio has 
nothing to offer God but broken resolutions, dare to 
come before Him with the artless feelings of a child ? 
Again, as we advance in years, our hearts grow colder. 
^It is one of the great difficulties of perseverance in 
spirituality, that there is so little sensible piety in middle 
life. The feelings are blunted ; hearts that beat high in 
youth, have lost their enthusiasm. The bright colours 
with which imagination invested life have gone, and all, 
even devotion, has put on the same wearisome look of 
ashy grey, as when the fire is burned out. Now, to 
supply this absence of feeling about God, our Lord has 
given us the Holy Communion. There God makes 
Himself sensible, and we feel His touch. A sudden 
gush of feeling springs up in our hearts, and we find 
ourselves almost unawares breaking out into acts of love. 
But we need not wonder at it, since Jesus Himself elicits 
them from our souls. No wonder, since Holy Commu- 
nion is God Himself embracing the soul, and whispering 



172 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

to us that He loves us with a love of which God alone 
is capable. The driest theologians become eloquent 
when they speak of this, the normal effect of the Blessed 
Sacrament.* " Besides grace," says Viva, " the Holy 
Eucharist confers upon us devotion and the fer- 
vour of charity, with a special delight, sweetness, and 
joy of Spirit. So, commonly, theologians decide with 
St. Thomas and Suarez. The reason is, because as 
bodily food not only nourishes but also brings delight 
with it, so does this spiritual food. It was figured by 
the manna, which brought all kinds of delight with it. 
Therefore, it gives to the soul a gush of sweetness 
which overflows upon the body, so that heart and flesh 
rejoice in the living God, and cease to have carnal 
desires. 

And this leads us to consider the last of the ordinary 
effects of the Holy Communion which need be men- 
tioned here. Our blessed Lord never forgot for a 
moment with whom he had to deal, and for whom He 
meant this adorable sacrament. Souls of all kinds 
crowd to the altar. It was meant, indeed, primarily, 
for her, to whom we owe it after Him, the Blessed 
Virgin. It was fitting that He should come again to 
her pure heart, from whom His Body and His precious 
Blood first came. After her it was destined for a long 
line of saints, martyrs, confessors, and virgins, to whom 
it was to be all in all. But it was meant, too, for myriads 
of sinners, struggling with temptations and with habits 
of sin. For instance, some poor creature has just been 
absolved. The devil has been cast out of him; the 
storm of passion has been completely lulled, and he is 



* Viva, Cursus Moralis, part 5, qu. 4, art. 5. 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 173 

at peace, but the foul fiend will not give up his prey so 
easily ; the burst of passion may be roused again. He 
has resolved, under the influence of a special grace, that 
nothing in the wide world will ever induce him to sin 
again ; but flesh is frail, and when the hour of tempta- 
tion comes, God help him then ! Is he to be banished 
from the altar- rail because of his frailty? Oh! God 
forbid ! Haste to give him the Body and Blood of 
Jesus. Not only at the moment will it fill him with 
love, but it will cool the fever in his blood against the 
coming trial. Not only does it give him actual grace 
at the time, but more than that, it gives him a right to 
more grace of the same kind at the time of future 
temptation. It is meant, so the Church tells us, to be 
an antidote to poison ; and when the fierce fit of passion 
returns, then Jesus will come again to help him at his 
utmost need, because the Blessed Sacrament has a pro- 
spective value, and more grace comes down, when 
it is wanted to help him who has lately received his 
Lord. 

We have hitherto considered the effects of the Holy 
Communion upon souls who approach it with ordinary 
dispositions. It is quite evident, however, that the 
designs of our Blessed Lord could not be bounded 
solely by the wish to assist sinners in the destruction of 
their sins. The Blessed Sacrament must have a part 
in the production of saints. It must aid souls in the 
attainment of perfection and on the road to sanctity, 
and we must now see what can be made out from 
theologians as to its deeper operations in the soul, and 
we must especially notice a controversy amongst them 
which bears upon the point. I shall state as clearly as 
I can their different views, and leave the reader to come 



174 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

to his own conclusion in a matter where the Church has 
left us free. 

It must have occurred to us to ask whether the Holy 
Communion produces any peculiar permanent union 
between Jesus and our souls. The moment of real 
union between the Body of our Lord and ourselves, as 
we have seen, is but short. It leaves behind it ines- 
timable effects, and even that brief instant of time 
suffices to give us a right to actual graces which go far 
beyond it. Still these graces are not permanent, nor 
are they a real union with Jesus Himself, and should 
we not expect that the soul so lovingly visited by our 
dear Lord would retain upon it some most special 
impression of the presence of such a guest? Above 
all, do not our Blessed Lord's own words contain a 
promise that the union which takes place with our souls 
in the Holy Eucharist should in some way or other be 
permanent ? u He who eateth this Bread remaineth 
in me and I in him." "As I live by the Father, so he 
that eateth me, he liveth by me." These words point 
to a continued special indwelling of our Lord in the 
soul, to a life of Jesus in the soul of a peculiar kind, as 
the permanent result of the Holy Communion. Nor is 
the promise satisfied by the increase of sanctifying 
grace within us, for this mode of union is not peculiar 
to the Blessed Sacrament, nor again can it be said to be 
any special union with the Person of our Lord. Sanc- 
tifying grace is not even a gift peculiar to us who live 
since the coming of Christ; it cannot, therefore, be 
referred to by words which seem to express a difference 
between the old dispensation and the new. On the 
other hand, it is certain that the Body of our Blessed 
Lord ceases to be with us a short time after the moment 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 175 

of communion. For all these reasons theologians have 
looked for a real and peculiar presence of our Lord, 
which would remain after His Body and Blood were 
gone. We will now briefly describe the various methods 
to which they have had recourse. 

If there be one title more than another to which the 
soul can lay claim, at the moment of communion, it is 
that of spouse of Jesus. Volumes have been written in 
former times to prove that in the Blessed Sacrament 
takes place the espousals of our Lord to the souls which 
He loves so dearly; and our ancestors could nourish 
their simple piety on spiritual books written to show 
that the language of the Canticle of Canticles might be 
applied to those who are united so intimately to Him 
there. In many an instance, and especially in this, we 
may feed with profit on the old thoughts which have 
nourished so many who have gone before us. All the 
glowing language of the prophets, where God takes 
back His bride who had wandered from Him, and decks 
her out in the diadem and the jewels which she had 
forfeited, may be easily applied to the joyful commu- 
nion of a repentant sinner. All the Eastern imagery 
with which the Holy Spirit inspired King Solomon on 
the day of his espousals, and of the joy of his heart, 
may be transferred entire to the Blessed Sacrament, for 
a greater than Solomon is there. Now, there is this 
peculiarity about the sacrament of matrimony, that the 
moral union which it creates between two souls is life- 
long, and does not cease when the rite which unites 
them is over. It remains with undiminished force till 
death. No tie is so tender, none so indissoluble. Death 
alone can put an end to it, just as mortal sin dissolves 
the union with Jesus. With what constant protection 



176 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

the husband guards his wife: with what loving con- 
fidence does she abandon herself to him ! He would 
shed his blood to guard her from harm, and that not by 
the fleeting impulse of a moment, but with the deter- 
mined resolution of a life. No wonder, therefore, that 
learned men have had recourse to the intimate union 
between husband and wife to express the permanent 
relations between Jesus and the soul, which are the 
result of the Holy Communion. And yet, not even 
this has been considered to be adequate to our Lord's 
words in the Gospel of St. John. After all, the per- 
manent union between those joined together by the 
sacrament of matrimony, though real, is not physical 
but moral ; and our Lord speaks of a continued in- 
dwelling, of a blending of two lives into one, which 
goes beyond the marriage-tie. Other theologians, 
therefore, have had recourse to another expedient, in 
order to solve the difficulty. 

It is certain that God has a number of modes of 
uniting Himself to His creatures, each one so intimate 
that it would seem impossible to imagine any one 
closer. Even the natural tie between Creator and crea- 
ture seems so close that human lan^uao-e fails in the 
attempt to express it. Human thought has perpetually 
broken down in trying to understand it. All who 
with their unassisted intellect realize it seem to 
fall into Pantheism, as a natural consequence of the 
attempt to understand it. How can He be closer to us, 
in whom we already live, and move, and have our 
being? He is all around us, like the atmosphere, 
and we are plunged in His immensity as the fish 
in the depths of the sea. We could not move hand or 
foot but with His concurrence; we could not think or 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 177 

will if He did not co-operate with us. Even holy men 
use terms which frighten us, when they speak of 
creation as the act by which body and soul come out of 
God, so hard is it to use words which throw between 
God and our origin the abyss of nothingness, even 
though the heart holds intact the revealed doctrine, 
that we came out of nothing. Yet grace creates a 
union with God, infinitely closer than that which 
already has gone beyond the powers of thought and 
of language. It differs in kind from the union involved 
in creation to such an extent, that, if by an impossibility 
all creatures could get beyond the immensity of God, 
still, those who were in a state of grace would be 
united to Him, though the natural tie had been snapped 
asunder. It is to this principle that theologians have 
had recourse in order to explain how there may be a 
permanent union with Jesus, even after His Body 
and Blood are gone from us. The Godhead of the 
Eternal Word may still remain, uniting Himself to 
us by some peculiar and permanent mode of union 
beyond that caused by grace. According to this 
view, when the species are consumed, and the Sacred 
Humanity leaves us, the Eternal Word remains, infus- 
ing Himself into all our actions, purifying our 
thoughts, and conferring peculiar illuminations upon 
the soul. 

This theory, however tempting in appearance, and 
however adequate it may seem to the words of our 
Lord, has not, however, been considered by many theo- 
logians to have solved the difficulty. It is considered 
I as a first principle by them, that no mission of the 
Divine Persons to the soul takes place without the 
simultaneous infusion of a created gift, on which this 

N 

I 



178 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

new indwelling is to be founded.* Thus, whenever the 
soul enters into some higher degree of union with God, 
a corresponding degree of sanctifying grace is con- 
ferred upon it, to enable it to bear this close approach 
to its Creator. For this reason the theory of the per- 
manent union of the Person of the Eternal Word, as 
the result of the Holy Communion, although true, is 
not supposed by those theologians to be sufficient, be- 
cause the question will recur, what corresponding cre- 
ated gift is at the same time given to the soul? If it 
be answered that it is a fresh degree of habitual grace, 
then the old difficulty comes back upon us: since all 
the sacraments confer an increase of sanctifying grace, 
its augmentation cannot be the special effect of the 
Holy Eucharist. If, on the contrary, it is said to be 
a different gift, then we are entitled to ask what that is. 
For these reasons a third hypothesis has been framed, 
which I will now explain. 

The Holy Communion is especially the union of our 
soul with the Sacred Humanity of Jesus. This is its 
peculiarity, that by which it differs from all other 
modes of union with God. It is the Body and Blood 
of Jesus, which here lead the great procession which 
comes into our soul. The three Persons of the Holy 
Trinity are there as well, but they attend upon them, 
and follow their lead. Such honour is due to the 
bleeding, wounded flesh which wrought our salvation. 
It alone comes upon the altar by virtue of the words of 
consecration; all else is there only by what is called 
concomitance. Although, however, the Body of Jesus 
comes in the foremost rank, yet it cannot be too often 



* Cienfuegos, Vita Abs., Disp. 8, sect. 2, 31. 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 179 

repeated that the Soul is there as well. In the Sacred 
Host is the blessed Soul of Jesus, with all its powers, 
gifts, and graces. It is by virtue of its union with this 
beautiful Soul of our Lord that the Body is a living 
instrument of grace. Only because the Soul vivifies it, 
the Sacred Heart can live; it was living Blood, ani- 
mated by a living Soul, which redeemed us. And in 
the Blessed Sacrament, as we have seen, the Soul of 
our Lord continues its functions. The Soul of Jesus 
takes its full share in the acts by which He unites Him- 
self to us at the moment of Holy Communion. They 
are intelligent, voluntary acts, done with the full parti- 
cipation of all His mental powers. It is by an act of 
His Soul that He infuses into us the particular grace 
which His understanding shows Him that we want. 
In one word, there is a special union between His soul 
and ours * 

This, then, is the foundation for the third theory on 
the subject which I am considering. It has been con- 
tended that when the species are consumed within us, 
and the Body of our Lord disappears, the Soul of Jesus 
remains behind, and continues the real union with us 
which it had contracted before. And this hypothesis, 
it will be observed, seems to unite all the requisite con- 
ditions, and to avoid the disadvantages of the other 
two. It perfectly comes up to our Lord's promise that 
He would establish His dwelling with us, for it is a 
permanent union with His Sacred Humanity, caused 
directly by the Holy Eucharist, and quite distinct from 
sanctifying grace. A few words will make its meaning 
clearer. 

* On this subject, vide whole of Disputation 8, in the Vita Abscon- 
dita. 



180 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 



A great insight may be gained as to the powers of a 
spiritual substance, by considering those which belong 
to the fallen angels. Stripped of all the ornaments of 
grace, their being preserves all that belongs to a spirit 
in its purely natural state. We can admire, while we 
tremble at the strength of their terrible intellect, and 
the gigantic physical powers, by which they bend and 
twist the natural forces of the universe, and distort 
them to purposes of their own. But the fearful part 
of the dominion which remains to them is the power 
which they exercise over the bodies and souls of men. 
Of these, the most awful form is that which in Scrip- 
ture is called possession. Not only does the evil spirit 
physically transport his victim, and fling him into fire and 
water at his pleasure, but he even is able to animate his 
body as though he were its soul. No bodily power 
comes nearer to the soul than language; it is our very 
thought, clothing itself in words, which rise up sponta- 
neously from the heart; yet this most human organ 
can be turned into a demon instrument. The evil 
spirit can suggest words to the mind, and form the 
lips to speak them; he utters through the mouth his 
devil's thoughts. He has even an influence over the 
feelings; he can make the pulses throb and the face 
turn pale with rage; he can twist the features into the 
expression of his revenge and hate. Possession appears 
to be a santanical caricature of the Incarnation, a dread- 
ful irony by which devils mimic the Man-God. Heart, 
brain, and lips become for a time the organs of a stran- 
ger spirit, who has taken up his abode there, and, while 
the fearful fit is on the poor sufferer, animates the body 
as though it was his own. 

Such is the power even of a fallen spirit; it can move 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 181 

the body of a human being, strangely shake and in- 
fluence the soul, and overwhelm with its own life that 
which was there before. If, then, such a power as this 
belongs to a spiritual substance, there is nothing incon- 
ceivable in the notion of a far different possession by 
which the Soul of Jesus might dwell in a Christian's 
being, and gradually more and more make it the organ 
of His own blessed life. Certain it is that the spiritual 
life consists in the substitution of the thoughts, feelings, 
views, and actions of Jesus for our own human powers. 
" I live, yet not I, but Jesus liveth m me," is the 
constant motto of the saint. It is the aim of the Chris- 
tian that " the life of Jesus should be manifested in our 
bodies," or, as the same apostle says ? " in our mortal 
flesh."* The very purpose for which He came down 
on earth and died, is said to have been that He might 
find a new life in us. Innumerable are the passages of 
Holy Writ which speaks as though the life of Jesus was 
to take the place of ours. In the histories of the saints 
the same idea is perpetually appearing. They speak as 
though the very Soul of Jesus animated their bodies, 
and so possessed them, body and soul, that their words 
thoughts, and actions, were rather His than theirs. 
The substitution, for instance, of our Lord's heart for 
that of St. Catherine of Sienna, will occur to every one ; 
and more than once in her life we find her very features 
assuming the likeness of our Lord, so that the bystanders 
exclaimed, " Is this Catherine or Jesus?" 

On the other hand, in many passages of the revela- 
tions of the saints, this effect is especially ascribed to the 
Holy Eucharist. Take, for instance, this one of St. 



* GaL ii. ; 2 Cor. iv. 



182 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

Gertrude : — " When on the Feast of the Purification I 
had received the Holy Communion, when my mind was 
intent upon God, I felt sensibly that my soul melted 
like wax before this heavenly fire. I knew that this 
feeling came from the bosom of Christ, which was 
applied to me like a seal. From it I received treasures 
of grace, for the fulness of the Godhead dwells in it 
bodily. From that time I remained signed with the 
character of the resplendent and ever tranquil Trinity, 
so that ever since, with the whole longing of my soul, 
I yearned for Him who is the highest good ; for that is 
what Thou art, O Lord, in the reality of Thine eternity, 
which is also the abyss of love from which we may 
draw endless streams of charity, of grace, and of every 
virtue." 

The most explicit testimony, however, is from the 
writings of St. Bonaventure, whose works deserve to 
be studied on account of the originality of his views, as 
well as his beautiful piety. Ct Oh ! how amiable is Thy 
lovingness, O sweetest Lord Jesus ; Thou canst not bear 
to be separated from us. Didst Thou not, when about 
to ascend to Thy Father, delegate power to man so that 
he might have Thee when he pleased on the altar? 
Thou didst do this just before Thy death, lest the fear 
of losing Thee altogether should be too much for them. 
Why, however, didst Thou make this provision for con- 
tinual union with us? Was it not enough to send 
down Thy Holy Spirit in Thy stead? But, no, Thou 
didst choose to abide with men. Thou hast chosen per- 
fectly to incorporate us with Thy Body, and to give us 
Thy Blood to drink, so that being drunk with Thy love, 
we shall have but one heart and one soul with Thee. 
For, since the Blood is the seat of the soul, when we 



THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 183 

drink Thy Blood our soul is inseparably united with 
Thy Soul. This, without doubt, is Thine aim ; this Thy 
desire, my God. This, my Lord and Redeemer, is what 
Thou hast laboured so long to bring about. For this, 
from Thine infancy to Thy death, didst Thou toil. Do 
Thou grant us this, who livest and reignest for ever. 
Amen."* 

This, then, according to this theory, is the permanent 
effect of the Holy Eucharist ; it is the union of the very 
Soul of Jesus with ours, not in figure but in reality. 
After a more than ordinarily good Communion it re- 
mains with us, never to leave us, unless, which God 
forbid, we fall into mortal sin. It animates us so that 
it penetrates into the depth of our being. It trans- 
forms us into Himself, so that, as the fallen spirits 
possessed the bodies of their victims, our Lord's blessed 
Soul takes possession of our whole nature, speaks with 
our lips, thinks with our brain, and moves in all oar 
actions. In proportion as our old human life disappears 
before His influence, human views and feelings vanish 
away, and the thoughts and desires of Jesus are substi- 
tuted for them. Instead of the love of ease comes the 
thirst for suffering ; instead of selfishness, a self-devoted 
zeal and a tender pity like that of Jesus, who alone is 
living within us, while our old self is dead. 

In a matter which God has not fully revealed, nor 
His Church decided, it is impossible for us to pronounce 
which of these theories are true. Enough, however, 
has been said to show that in some way or other the 
Holy Communion has a wonderful, permanent effect 
upon our increase in sanctity, whilst the actual graces, 



* Stimulus amoris, p. 2, c. 3. 



184 THE EFFECTS OF COMMUNION ON OUR SOULS. 

which we formerly considered, render it a most mar- 
vellous instrument in the conversion of the worst of 
sinners. On the one hand, in treating of the higher 
effects of the Blessed Sacrament we are obliged to use 
terms which resemble those of mystical theology; on 
the other, the same divine instrument abases itself to 
the healing of the foul wounds and diseases of the most 
degraded souls. 

Need we wonder at this result of our investigations, 
since the Blessed Sacrament is Jesus Himself, He who 
chose Mary for His mother and John for His beloved 
disciple, and yet talked by the side of Jacob's well with 
the woman of Samaria? 



PART III. 



THE PEACTICE OF HOLY COMMUNION. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



187 



CHAPTER I 

HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 

We have now finished the theoretical part of our task, 
and we may proceed at once to lay down practical 
rules to guide us in the administration or reception of 
the Blessed Sacrament. There is, however, an inter- 
mediate process, which cannot fail to help us very 
much in this further part of our labours. Nothing 
can be of such assistance to us in assigning a criterion 
for the frequency of Holy Communion as to trace 
its history, and to see according to what standard the 
varying discipline of the Church on the subject was 
regulated. We know, of course, that the Church de- 
sires her children to approach frequently, even daily, 
to receive the Bread of Life, if they are fit for it ; yet 
we know also that saints have at various times counselled 
and adopted in their own persons very different rules 
for the reception of the Holy Eucharist. Let us see, 
then, whether we can make out, from the actual practice 
of the faithful in different ages, any principles for our 
own guidance in this matter. I believe, after a careful 
consideration of the facts of the case, we shall come to 
the conclusion that in measuring the rate of frequency 
of Communion, spiritual directors in practice have not 
considered exclusively the amount of sanctity in the 
faithful, but also the amount of the dangers and temp- 



188 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



tations in which, from the circumstances of the time, 
they were placed. 

All history has lately become more living and fami- 
liar. Circumstances which, in ancient times, were con- 
sidered beneath the dignity of history, are now con- 
tinually found in the pages of the historian. No one 
is now satisfied with records and descriptions of battles 
and sieges, of treaties and partitions of territory, of the 
public life of king and emperors. Now we all long to 
look into the living heart of the generations which are 
gone, to treat them as beings of flesh and blood like 
ourselves, and to know how they lived and how they 
felt and suffered. Something of the same sympathy 
with the past ought surely to be found in the ecclesi- 
astical historian. We cannot help desiderating in the 
pages of Fleury or of Orsi some notice of the intimate 
life of Christians of old. Above all, I believe every 
one would feel a breathless interest in any revelation 
of the interior life of the early Christians. Who, for 
instance, would not wish to evoke out of his long sleep 
any one of the martyrs, brought from the catacombs 
into our churches, and to ask him to reconstruct for us 
the life of those who bled and died with him for the 
cause of Christ. What were their devotions? what 
their method of prayers? had they any method at all? 
did they make their meditation every morning? did 
they go to confession every Saturday? how far were 
they like, how far unlike us in their trials and tempta- 
tions, in their feelings and views? I at least confess to 
such a curiosity, and I believe I am not alone. I have 
known a good old Jesuit father at Rome shed tears of 
joy when a rudely-painted Madonna was found in the 
catacombs, with her hands lifted up in the attitude of 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



189 



a priest at mass, telling a touching tale of the devotion 
to Mary of the saints of old. No geologist has ever 
gloated over the leaf of a bygone flora or the foot- 
prints of some extinct kind of bird in the old red sand- 
stone, with half the eagerness that we gather up the 
least echo of a hymn sung at the lighting of lamps, in 
primitive times, when the Church was growing dark, 
or the smallest indication, in some fragment of a Father, 
as to how the early Christians lived their daily life. 

It is not often that we can satisfy our curiosity. As 
the records of living things in the first period of the 
young earth, if there were any, are said to have been 
destroyed in the heat of its primeval fire, so many a 
document which would tell us of the life of the first 
Christians perished in the times of persecution. There 
seems to be a providential reason for this destruction 
of ancient records. Our Lord would seem to wish to 
avert the eyes of Christians from dead tradition to 
living authority. While enough is left to show that 
the early Christians were Catholics, not enough remains 
to base our faith solely on the history of the past. 
More than sufficient remains to prove the identity of 
the ancient and modern Church ; yet the attempt to 
make the Church of the Fathers the only standard of 
Christian truth, becomes simply absurd, when there are 
too few Fathers to enable us to construct out of them 
a complete account of the faith and practice of the first 
centuries. 

One thing, however, if nothing else, is perfectly clear 
in the lives of the early Christians. A whole revelation 
of their interior is contained in the fact of their intense 
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. The records of 



190 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



primitive times point to their daily Mass and Commu- 
nion. Many a long year passed over before the touch- 
ing description of the early Church, in the Acts of the 
Apostles, ceased to apply to Christians, that their chief 
characteristics were their perseverance in prayer and 
their breaking the Eucharistic bread. The one thing 
which can be made out with certainty from the cata- 
combs is, that the centre and object of all devotion is 
the altar. For miles and miles under Rome extend the 
tortuous galleries, excavated with incredible labour out 
of the volcanic tufa, for the purpose of being able 
to offer up the Adorable Sacrifice. Not the costly 
pyramids, built by the hands of tens of thousands of 
captives, or the elaborately painted sepulchres of Egypt, 
prove more clearly that the people on the banks of the 
Nile had a religious reverence for the dead, than the 
immense catacombs, dug out under the throne of the 
Caesars, by the spade of the poor worker in the sand- 
pits, prove that the Christian's love all centres round 
the Adorable Sacrifice. If they could not have their 
daily Mass above ground, they must burrow under the 
earth to find it. Besides which, the daily Communion 
was an indispensable accompaniment to the Mass. 
There are documents which prove that all present at 
the Holy Sacrifice received the Holy Communion. A 
canon in the Apostolical constitutions pronounces cen- 
sures against all who do not communicate at the Mass 
at which they assist. A council of Antioch, held under 
Pope Julius, enacts the same decree. And, even if it 
were proved that these canons only apply to the sacred 
ministers, still a well-known passage of St. Jerome 
points to the relics in his time of the ancient discipline, 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



191 



when all the faithful present communicated at the 
Mass.* 

But nothing shows the frequency of communion 
amongst the early Christians so clearly as the exceed- 
ing facility with which laymen and women were en- 
trusted with the Blessed Sacrament. Our dear Lord 
puts Himself unreservedly into the hands of His 
faithful ones in those fearful times. Human imagina- 
nation can hardly conceive a moment of greater horror 
than that of the breaking out of a persecution like 
that, for instance, under Marcus Aurelius, in which 
Polycarp and the martyrs of Lyons perished. Many a 
heart must have sunk when the edict appeared, by 
which Christians were not only condemned when 
accused, as under Trajan, but systematically sought 
out by the emperor's command. Neither age nor sex 
were safe. At any given moment, the man of sena- 
torial rank, the venerable matron, or the girl of 
sixteen, might be hurried from the refinement and 
splendour of a Roman home before a ruthless magis- 
trate, to be publicly stripped and scourged, tortured, 
and put to death. Amidst all these horrors, the one 
bright spot was the Blessed Sacrament. The moment 

* Chardon, Histoire des Sac. Eucharistie, c. 6, p. 283. It has 
been argued that the decree which orders all present at the Mass to 
communicate applies only to the ecclesiastics. I cannot agree with 
this opinion. A comparison of the 8th and 9th Apostolical canons 
will show that the faithful were included ; and if there is any 
ambiguity in the 9th canon, it will be removed by a comparison with 
the 2nd canon .of the Council of Antioch. Labbe, torn. 2, p. 1396. 
That canon looks as if it was meant to be an interpretation of the 
Apostolical canon. Besides, if at that late period such a discipline 
was in force, it affords an a fortiori argument for its existence pre- 
viously. 



192 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



that the Church was declared to be in a state of perse- 
cution, the first act of the bishop was to distribute the 
Blessed Sacrament amongst the faithful, that they 
might take our Lord to their homes, and communicate 
themselves as they pleased with their own hands. Men 
and women thus carried home the Body of Jesus. So 
much was this distribution the acknowledged and 
official declaration that the Church was in a state of 
persecution, that, in after times, heretics, in order to 
proclaim that they were persecuted by the Catholics, 
were known to distribute the Blessed Sacrament, to be 
carried away by the members of their sect. Our Lord 
set no bounds to the prodigality with which He gave 
Himself to Christians in those awful times ; and the 
Church knew His mind so well that the utmost latitude 
was then allowed, both in the celebration of Mass 
and the conveyance of the Holy Eucharist. Priests 
crowded into the dungeons, at the risk of their lives, 
to offer up the sacrifice for the poor sufferers in prison. 
St. Lucian, a priest of Antioch, afterwards martyred at 
Nicomedia, because he had no altar, lay down in the 
prison, and offered Mass on his own bosom to give 
communion to the prisoners. The Blessed Sacrament 
was entrusted to any one, in order to be conveyed to 
those who were unable to be present at Mass. A 
young acolyte, Tharcisius, was thus carrying it, when 
he was attacked and beaten to death by the pagans. 
Every one knows the instance quoted in Eusebius from 
St. Denis of Alexandria. A poor man named Serapion, 
who had fallen away in a time of persecution, was on 
his death-bed. The priest, unable to carry the Via- 
ticum to him, gave it to a child, who conveyed and 
administered it to the dying man. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



193 



But it was not only in times of persecution that the 
Church was thus prodigal and communion thus fre- 
quent. After, according to the discipline of the times, 
the one Mass of the bishop, the deacons used to carry 
the Blessed Sacrament to those who could not be 
present at it. Often was our Lord's Body hidden 
under a heathen roof, with no lamp burning before it, 
amidst the sculptures and the images painted on the 
wall, and the horrors of a heathen home. We learn this 
from Tertullian, who urges the danger of a discovery 
by a pagan husband, as an argument with a Christian 
girl against a mixed marriage. Thus, even women com- 
municated themselves, though they used a linen cloth, 
while men received our Lord in their bare hands. 

Beautiful early Church ! I begin to understand the 
heroism of her children when I see their devotion to the 
Blessed Sacrament. The maternal tenderness and the 
wonderful courage of St. Perpetua become intelligible 
when we see that the Holy Communion haunted her in 
her dreams under the most familiar image, together 
with visions of heaven. There is a touching simplicity 
in the early Christians which reminds one of the 
Indians of Paraguay, amidst the over-refinement and 
feeble civilization of the Roman empire. It is hopeless 
to efface the hierarchical element, as it is called, from 
the simple records of the early Church. The bishop 
and the Holy Eucharist are ever re-appearing. As 
sheep obey their shepherd, so they ever have recourse 
to the pastor from whom they receive the Bread of 
Life. He is their universal director; he regulates 
their marriages ;* at his Mass all communicate. Amidst 

* Vide Epistle of St. Ignatius to Polycarp, in Cureton's Corpus 
Ignatianum. pp, 9, 11. 



194 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



their profound sorrows and bloody trials, there is a 
strange joy in their hearts which radiates from the 
Holy Communion. Amongst the scanty relics which 
remain of them, the chalices of glass, stamped with the 
effigy of the Good Shepherd, in which the Blood of the 
Immaculate Lamb was offered up, figure by the side of 
the instruments of torture, brought after the martyr's 
death from the executioners. The lyre of joy and the 
anchor of hope are engraved on their rings, and bear 
testimony to their interior happiness in the midst of the 
terrible temptations of the time of persecution. The 
idea of death is effaced by the hope of a joyful resur- 
rection ; and the uppermost thought in their minds is, 
that the Holy Communion which they have so often 
received is the seed of immortality, the pledge of ever- 
lasting life. 

Such were the familiar relations between our Lord 
in the Blessed Sacrament and the early Christians. Nor 
need we put aside their example, as though on account 
of their sanctity they could not in any sense help us in 
finding a rule for our own conduct. I do not for an 
instant deny the holiness of the primitive Christians, 
nor that their lives in general were such as would put 
us to the blush now. I only contend that their sanctity 
was not the only reason for their frequent communions, 
but that the danger to which they were exposed, living 
as they did, in the midst of a heathen world, had also 
much to do with the generous prodigality of our Lord. 
A close study of their condition till, in the beginning 
of the fourth century, the empire submitted to the 
Church, will show what I mean. 

It would be a mistake to suppose that all Christians 
in primitive times were saints. We must remember 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



195 



that there were long intervals in the three first centu- 
ries, when there was no persecution.* In Proconsular 
Africa, for instance, it does not appear that any Chris- 
tian blood had been shed before the Scillitan martyrs 
suffered under Septimus Severus. When Decius 
ascended the throne, in 249, many parts of the empire 
had known no persecution for thirty years. After the 
death of Valerian, in 259, and the promulgation of an 
edict of toleration by Gallienus, the Christian Church 
was at peace till towards the close of Dioclesian's reign, 
in 303.f In the meanwhile thousands had flocked into 
the Church who had never calculated on the honours 
of martyrdom. Officers in the guards and fine ladies, 
eunuchs, chamberlains in the imperial palace, had been 
received into the Church. We may be sure that when 
the cathedral church of Nicomedia was broken into on 
the 22nd of February, and the congregation, who were 
hearing Mass, was dispersed, when on Easter morning 
the emperor's edict was promulgated, there was hardly 
less consternation amongst the Christian flock than 
would be the case if the police invaded one of our 
churches now. Even in earlier times Christians could 
forget the days of persecution. In the third century a 
long peace had enervated the minds of Christians. 
There could then be bishops, like Paul of Samosata, 
whose relations to Queen Zenobia were certainly more 
like those of a courtier than a martyr. Shortly before 
that, the Decian persecution fell like a thunderbolt 
on the rich Christian gentlemen and ladies of vast, luxu- 
rious Alexandria; many Christians of high rank came 

* There were occasional martyrdoms even in these intervals, but 
no official or general persecution. 

t Neander, torn, 1, pp. 180, 194, 197, 204, Ed. Bohn. 



196 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



forward, and sacrificed at once to the heathen gods. 
Previously to that fearful period there was many a 
breathing time for the Church. There were often 
trembling hopes of victory for the faith, as various 
reports came out of the depths of the palace as to the 
dispositions of its imperial inmate and his court. 
Mareia, the mistress of Commodus, was a Christian, 
and had the greatest influence over him. Julia 
Mammsea, the mother of Alexander Severus, had a 
conference with Origen ; the emperor himself had an 
image of Christ in his private chapel. Philip the Arab 
was said to be a Christian. Many a man and women 
must have joined the Christian Church, as converts 
come to us, expecting to lead an easy life, to enjoy the 
sacraments, and go to heaven with tranquillity and 
honour. 

It could not be otherwise; the net of the Church 
gathered together fish of every sort. From dissolute 
Corinth, and the learned schools of Athens and Mar- 
seilles, they flocked into the Church. Christianity had 
penetrated into the waggon of the wandering Tartar 
and the hut of the wild Numidian. The obstinacy of 
the Buddhist, the fanaticism of the Persian fire-wor- 
shipper, the superstition engrained in the hot blood of 
the proverbially- passionate African, and the subtlety of 
the Alexandrian, were all to be subdued under the 
yoke of Christ. We should expect that amongst all 
these many would, during a time of long peace, be 
exposed to fearful temptations. We must remember 
that they were living in the world, and that a world of 
heathenism. Christian and pagan were thrown together 
in the utmost confusion. Christian matrons had 
heathen husbands ; Christian maidens had pagan fathers 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



197 



and mothers. The same complicated questions which 
trouble Catholics, and especially converts now, might 
perplex Christians in the world then. Questions would 
arise respecting mixed marriages, and the ordinary 
intercourse of social life would be fertile in cases of 
conscience, when a Christian at a dinner party might 
be offered meats sacrificed to idols, or be present at 
libations to heathen gods, or be called upon to wear 
crowns of flowers in honour of Bacchus or Venus. 
They might be driven into unbelieving society, they 
might go to the theatres and to heathen places of 
amusements, of the horrors of which not the worst 
opera in Europe can give the slightest idea. Nay, we 
know they did so. What is more, we also know that 
some Christians who frequented the sacraments were 
allured into the pagan theatres. St. Cyprian, or who- 
ever is the author of the tract De Spectaculis, mentions 
the fact of a Christian going straight thither from the 
Church, bearing with him the Blessed Sacrament, which 
had just been distributed. He tells us also of the 
punishment inflicted on a person who received the 
Holy Eucharist in a state of sacrilege, and of the flame 
of fire which issued from the vessel where it was 
reserved when the Christian who had brought it home 
treated it with disrespect.* 

From all this it is evident that the frequency of com- 
munion in the early Church was not entirely because 
all Christians were saints. Besides this, it is important 
not to forget that this discipline of the Church, with 
respect to the Blessed Sacrament, lasted long after the 
times of persecution. St. Basilf tells us that, in his 



* De Spectaculis, 341 . De Lapsis, 189. 



t Ep. 289. 



198 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



time, the faithful in Egypt still carried the Blessed 
Sacrament home. Daily Communion, it is true, was 
more rare, but the faithful in Alexandria and Csesarea 
still communicated three or four times a week. Even 
in an author of the seventh century, an instance occurs 
of the Catholic wife of a heretic husband receiving; the 
Holy Eucharist at the hands of a neighbouring woman, 
who kept it in her house.* 

In the meanwhile, apart from and around those 
Christians, who thus lived at home, following the 
ordinary avocations of life, there were silently spring- 
ing up a class of men and women, so numerous and so 
peculiar that they might be called another world; I 
mean that multitudinous host which is known under 
the very vague name of the Fathers of the Desert. So 
utterly different were they in their habits and mode of 
life from Christians living in the world, that it will be 
necessary to treat of them apart. We shall probably 
be astonished to find that, as a general rule, they com- 
municated less often than the faithful whom we have 
hitherto considered. There has been much exaggera- 
tion on the subject of their communions; fortunately, 
however, so much is known about them, that a careful 
comparison of facts is all that is necessary to make the 
subject clear. 

Christian imagination has ever been attracted towards 
the saints of the desert. After the time of martyrdom 
has ceased, the next object on which the eye loves to 
rest is the record of the wonderful lives of these kind, 
simple solitaries. It is not too much to say that the 
Christian spiritual life was formed by them. All its 



* Chardon, ibid. 4. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



199 



reality and dread of self-deceit, its hatred of pomposity, 
and its simple naturalness, even in the highest super- 
natural states, its good humour, and most tender cha- 
rity for the faults and failings of others ; in a word, all 
that distinguishes the monk from the fakir, comes to us 
from the saints of the desert. Open the pages of 
Rodriguez, you will find that the rules for self-examina- 
tion and for wrestling with temptation, which guide us 
even now, come from those dear solitaries. After all 
our books on meditation, we might still go back with 
profit to the fervid ejaculations and the artless effusions 
of their simple hearts in the desert. Strange that it 
should ever have been thought that many of them 
seldom or never communicated. One reason, perhaps, 
for this mistake is the erroneous view conveyed by the 
word desert. 

There is a strange attraction to solitude in the Chris- 
tian souk None have ever made any progress in per- 
fection without feeling a longing to break away from 
men, and to be alone with God. This yearning for 
solitude could not fail to show itself early in the his- 
tory of the Church; and it might almost have been 
prophesied that it would appear first in Egypt. The 
Nile valley is but one narrow strip of green rescued 
out of the sandy desert. Close upon the beautiful 
cities, swarming with life, centres of commerce for the 
Jew, of learning for the Greek, of easy living and 
frantic joy for every race under the sun, lay the sands 
of the dead solitary wilderness. A Christian soul 
could not long withstand the temptation of flying away 
like a dove, of escaping out of this den of wickedness, 
into the endless expanse of silent solitude. Not even 
the solemn chants and the gorgeous ceremonies of the 



200 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



majestic church of Athanasius could lure the wanderer 
back. There was every requisite for a hermit life, In 
the two limestone ranges, on each side of the broad, 
resistless river, in the rocky walls of the gorges which 
brought the desert sands close upon the stream, were 
numberless caves, ready made for the solitary. Egypt 
was a country of ruins. The hermit could live in a 
tomb, sleeping with his head on a mummy for his pil- 
low as St. Macarius did once on his travels. He could 
find an old castle, once a Roman station, then a den of 
coiners, with St. Paul. Or, like the monks of Metanea 
he could take up his abode in many a ruined temple, 
undistracted by the avenues of stony-eyed sphynxes 
looking down upon him in his prayers, or by the long 
processions of bright-coloured figures of Egyptian men 
and women on the walls. Or if he went further into 
the desert, he might find an oasis, like that of St. 
Anthony, not far from the porphyry quarries, green 
with palm-trees, and with clear, murmuring water 
gushing from the rock. Above all, what is most to our 
purpose, he would, in almost all cases, be at no great 
distance from the many villages bordering on the Nile, 
or even from a town. The monks could thus combine 
two things apparently incompatible — the proximity of 
the Sacraments and the solitude of the desert. Ac- 
cordingly? we find numerous instances of priests coming 
to the monks to say Mass on Sundays, or the monks 
going to the village Church to receive the Holy Com- 
munion. It is this which gives the peculiarly human 
character to the Fathers of the Egyptian deserts. We 
read continually of their crossing the Nile in boats to 
sell their baskets of palm-leaves. They let themselves 
out as reapers in the harvest season, like Irish labourers. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



201 



They are the consolation of the poor villagers in the 
mud hovels on the banks of the Nile. They kneel at 
the same altars, partake in their sufferings, and work 
miracles on their sick. They are continually convert- 
ing whole villages of barbarian Copts and other hea- 
thens. Above all, their kind hearts could not bear to 
hear of poor creatures lost in sin. They are perpetu- 
ally sallying out into some great, wicked town, and res- 
cuing some unhappy Thais or Mary, bringing them 
back with them into the desert, to teach them to do 
penance, and to love God. 

These are the features which would strike every 
casual reader of the lives of the Fathers of the Desert, 
and which lessen the difficulty which the imagination 
raises as to the possibility of communion in their soli- 
tudes. But we must go more into detail, and travel 
beyond Egypt, before we can understand how, and how 
often, the solitaries received the Koly Eucharist. 

Besides Egypt, the chief countries into which the 
monastic movement spread in the East were the penin- 
sula of Arabia, Palestine, Syria, and Mespotamia. In 
all these countries there were great varieties in the 
mode of living of the solitaries* It may be stated, 

* It seems to me that a clear distinction should be drawn between 
the conventual fathers and those who lived in what I have called a 
desert. Very probably most of the inhabitants of deserts ultimately 
became collected into convents. But this did not take place till after 
the times of which I am writing. St. Jerome, for instance, found 
Nitria precisely in the position which I describe. See an important 
passage in Marin, 2, 309. His distribution is really the same as mine. 
His cenobites are my conventuals, his hermits are my dwellers in the 
desert and the laura, and his anchorites are my hermits. For most of 
the facts concerning the Fathers of the Desert, I am indebted to 
Marin's admirable " Vies des Peres des Deserts." 



202 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



however, generally, that they may be classed into ceno- 
bites and hermits, and that the former class is suscep- 
tible of many subdivisions. By cenobites I mean all 
those who in any sense lived together; and these may 
be subdivided into three varieties, the convent, the 
laura, and the desert. In each case it is easy to show 
how their communions were managed. 

The conventual solitaries were really monks of the 
same kind as the Benedictines and Cistercians in the 
west. Take, for instance, the largest Egyptian order, 
that of St. Pacomius. They had not, indeed, the same 
strong organisation and complete system as the monks 
of St. Benedict or St. Bernard, but, like them, they 
lived under the same roof, ate at the same table, and 
received the sacraments in the same church. This was 
the most numerous of the eastern orders. From its 
first convent, not far from the ruined Tentyris, in 
Tabenna, the Isle of Palms, where the angel appeared 
to St. Pacomius as he was cutting reeds, the order 
spread to the Canopic mouth of the Nile, where a 
monastery existed, in a place once infamous as Corinth 
or Cyprus, and so proverbially riotous, that Seneca had 
said that a man who wished for peaceful solitude would 
never seek Canopus. There were 1400 monks in 
Tabenna alone, without reckoning the nuns on the 
opposite bank of the Nile. The saint himself founded 
nine houses, and St. Theodore afterwards added four 
of men and one of women. Here, then, we can 
account for a vast number of religious ; Ave know that 
few of them were ordained priests, yet that they had 
churches of their own, to which priests were attached, 
who said Mass, and gave communion every Saturday and 
Sunday to the monks, and every Sunday to the nuns. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 203 

Let us now turn to those who lived in a desert. 
The readers of Rosweide and Marin must have observed 
that the monks are classified according to different 
deserts which they inhabited. In this connexion a 
desert means a lonely spot in a wilderness, where a 
number of solitaries lived, dotted about in separate 
huts, yet more or less connected together, being at a 
short distance from each other, and generally under the 
spiritual direction of one or more Fathers who had 
obtained influence by their sanctity. Of course, the 
first requisite for such a desert is the possibility of 
living in it. It was either some wady, sheltered from 
the sand, or some gorge in a range of rocky hills, or 
some island in the Nile. Of these the principal were 
Nitria, Scetis, Diolcos, and St. Anthony's mountain, 
apparently in a district called Porphyritis, about 
eighteen miles from the Red Sea. Let us pay a visit 
to Nitria, the formation of which is as well known as 
any. About forty miles from Alexandria is a gloomy 
valley now called Wady Natroon, or the vale of 
natron. It contains eight melancholy lakes or pools, 
which, partially drying up in summer, leave a thick 
incrustation, some of salt, others of natron. This 
unpromising abode is said to be all that remains of a wide 
sea which once rolled its waters over the great desert 
of Sahara. The ground is so impregnated with salt, 
that nothing grows there but bulrushes and stunted 
palms, reduced to the size of bushes. There are 
obscure traditions of a Saint Fronto who lived here as 
early as a.d. 150, but the saint who really peopled the 
desert was Amon, who lived in the time of St. 
Athanasius. Hither he came while St. Anthony was 
still living, and disciples soon clustered around him. 



204 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



They had at first hard work to live. We hear of one 
who bored through the barren soil to find a well, and 
at last came upon water so thoroughly impregnated 
with saline particles, that you might almost as well have 
drunk the salt sea. Yet for thirty years he went on 
drinking from this unrefreshing well. At another 
time eighty monks set to work to dig for water ; they 
worked for three days and found nothing. At last St. 
Pior, this very monk who had contented himself with 
the brackish well, came to look at them under the hot 
mid-day sun, clad in his sheep-skin, and kneeling down 
in the deep pit, he prayed, and struck the ground with 
a pickaxe, and out gushed the clear, sweet water. In 
time colonies spread out into the desert. The sides of 
the ravine where Anion lived, were honeycombed with 
cells, and there was no more room. In this way it was 
that gradually the solitude was invaded, and the monks 
formed themselves into convents under the rule of St. 
Macarius like those we have described. What, how- 
ever, I wish principally to point out, is that from the 
earliest times we find a church in the wilderness. 
Even when old Abbot Pior was young, he already 
found a church there. We are able in the neighbour- 
ing desert to assist as it were at the building of the 
church. St. Macarius had formerly been a hermit near 
a village. There a wicked woman accused him of 
injuring her. The calumny was believed, yet Macarius 
pitied her. He worked night and day to support her, 
and said to himself : Well, Macarius, you have now got a 
wife and you must work for her ! Afterwards his inno- 
cence was proved, and men saw from his benign kind- 
ness and humility that he was a saint. He fled far into 
the Libyan desert of Scete beyond Nitria, and disciples 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



205 



began to flock to him. They had as yet no church; so 
he travelled fifteen weary days and nights across the 
waste wilderness, and over the Nile, to find St. Anthony. 
One thing about which he consulted him was, whether 
he should build a church, and we know the saint's 
answer, for, soon after he came, a church rose up in 
the desert among the scattered cells of the monks. 
Afterwards, as the desert grew, there were as many as 
four churches at Scete raising themselves conspicuously 
up amidst the hospital, the corn mills, and the other 
buildings of the place. 

It is evident, then, that the Church in which the holy 
mysteries were celebrated was considered as indispen- 
sable in what we have called the deserts as in the con- 
vents. What is more to our purpose, we are expressly 
told that the Church at Nitria was used solely for Mass 
and Communion, and not for the chanting of the office. 
We also know that the 5000 monks of that desert 
assembled to receive the Holy Communion every Satur- 
day and Sunday, and that to express their joy they 
then covered their usual black habit with a clean white 
linen garment. The same thing is incidentally told us 
of the monks of Scete, and that the same two days 
were set apart for their communions. 

We can evidently have no doubt as to the practice 
of the monks of Egypt. We can, therefore, pass on 
from the desert to the inhabitants of the laura. Here 
the solitaries take another shape. Instead of being 
dotted all over the face of the wilderness, they dwell 
indeed in separate cells, but far closer together, and all 
surrounded by a wall. To find the laura we quit the 
banks of the Nile, and cross over to the Holy Land. 
We are still among the Fathers of the Desert, yet evi- 



206 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



dently the word has a very different signification than 
when we had the wide expanse of the great African 
wilderness before us. It seems that the deserts of the 
New Testament simply mean a lonely place, or unculti- 
vated wild. The bare limestone hills between Jerusalem 
and Jericho were a desert; and the same name was 
applied to the wild ravine of the Kedron, where is still 
the convent of Mar-Saba; to the jungle in the valley of 
the Jordan, and the cliffs of Engaddi which hang over 
the Dead Sea. It was in such places that the solitaries 
in the Holy Land dwelt, never at any great distance 
from the inhabited country. In their language a high- 
land moor, or^even Salisbury plain, would be a desert; 
and a solitary taking up his abode near Stonehenge, or 
even by the Giant's Grave on a Sussex down, might be 
called a Father of the Desert. There is, therefore, still 
less difficulty in settling the question of the commu- 
nions of the inhabitants of the laura than of an Egyp- 
tian monastery. Wherever a laura is established, we 
find the Patriarch of Jerusalem coming to consecrate 
the Church. Hardly has St. Euthymius established 
himself on Mount Quarantana when he sets up an altar 
in his oratory. In the laura which he afterwards built 
in another place Mass was said every day. In that of 
St. Gerasimus, in the valley of the Jordan, we are ex- 
pressly told that the monks communicated every Satur- 
day and Sunday. The same thing is said of St. Sabas, 
who set apart a large cavern for the church of his 
monastery, and there again Mass was offered up on 
Saturday and Sunday. 

With the monks of the laura we may now close our 
accounts of the Cenobites of the desert; and while we 
have no difficulty in deciding that they did communi- 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



207 



cate, we cannot also help coming to the conclusion that 
in general they did not receive the Holy Communion 
more than once or twice a week. I know of but one 
exception of any note, and that is in the case of St. 
Apollo, who lived near Hermopolis at the foot of a 
mountain where the Holy Family is said to have taken 
up its abode for some time during its sojourn in Egypt. 
The spirit of the infant Jesus seems to have passed into 
this beautiful, joyous saint. Every day at three o'clock 
in the afternoon hi;^ monks assembled to receive Holy 
Communion, and tljien went to break their fast. With 
this exception I believe I am right in saying that the 
Fathers of the Desert communicated either only on 
Sunday, or on Saturday and Sunday. 

Such were the monks of the ancient Church of St. 
Athanasius and St. Basil. They fled away from that 
old, wicked, R/man world, which was so rotten that 
the infusion of Christianity itself could hardly mend it; 
which good for nothing but to be broken up for 
burning by the sword and battle-axe of Goth and Hun. 
But beyond these, further on in the waste howling 
wilderness, were men who were not content with giving 
up the world for Christ's sake. The cenobite had 
given up wife and children and all the ties which wind 
so closely around the heart of man ; but there was still 
some pleasure in dwelling with brethren in a monastery 
or a laura. The convent became a second home, and 
there were some who wished to give up even that for 
Christ. It was no rash impulse which drove them on, 
or, if it was, they soon came back, scared from the real 
wilderness and its solemn silence, broken only by the 
howls of its hyenas and the sullen roar of the lions, 
who might pay a visit to his cave. He would soon 



208 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



long for his quiet bed, his old companions, and their 
well-known chants. But when the desire had remained 
long in the mind, and the abbot, perceiving that it was 
a real vocation to a higher state of contemplation, bade 
the monk God speed, then he walked forth into the 
terrible desert till he found some cavern or some ravine 
where he could build a hut. It is of these hermits that 
the question has chiefly been raised, how they managed 
to communicate. Did they make a sacrifice of the 
Blessed Sacrament as well as of all the rest? A few 
considerations will decide the question. 

It is so incredible that a large body of holy men 
should have given up the Holy Communion that 
nothing should make us believe it, except positive proof 
that they did not communicate, or else of the absolute 
impossibility of their doing so. There are numberless 
proofs that their devotion to the Blessed Sacrament 
was like that of a medieval or a modern saint. Abbot 
Poemen bids his monks come to their weekly commu- 
nion like thirsty harts to the water-brooks. Careless- 
ness about communion was looked upon as a mark of 
tepidity in the desert, and the abstaining from it as a 
proof of illusion, which was punished by dreadful 
judgments. The doctrine of the abbots in their con- 
ferences is precisely that of modern books ; and Thomas 
of Jesus, the Carmelite mystical writer, cites St. 
Macarius to prove a peculiar opinion on the effect of 
Holy Communion* The same kind of miracles with 
respect to the Blessed Sacrament, occurs amongst them 
as we read of in the case of modern saints.f St. 
Euthymius' face shone like St. Philip's as he said Mass ; 



* De Orat. Div. 4, 28. 



f Rosweide, C36. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



209 



St. Macarius saw a light play around Abbot Mark 
when he communicated. St. Arsenius tells a story of 
the Infant Jesus appearing in the Host to one who 
thought that it was but the figure of the Body of our 
Lord. Since the Fathers of the Desert had this vivid 
feeling about the Holy Eucharist, nothing but the 
impossibility of receiving it should be considered as a 
valid proof that they lived without it. Whenever it 
was possible for them to receive it, we may safely sup- 
pose that they did. Now, what was the state of the 
case? 

First, it was very rarely that they wandered away 
from the convent, laura, or desert, so far as to preclude 
their going to the church at regular times. It did not 
require to go very far into the desert in order to be alone, 
and we find from innumerable instances, that, except 
in rare cases, the hermits made a point of being near 
enough to be within reach of the sacraments. Take, 
for instance, the desert of Cells, which may be con- 
sidered as the hermitage of that of Nitria. It was 
founded by St. Anthony, who led from the Nitrian 
valley a party of Cenobites who wished to live as 
hermits. They walked on for twelve miles, till the sun 
set over the wide desert. Then he planted a cross and 
bade them settle there. Not only could they thus 
occasionally have gone to Nitria, but we find that they 
had a church of their own to which they went to com- 
municate every Saturday and Sunday. One of the 
hermits in this desert was, we are told, five miles from 
the church, yet he arrived regularly on the appointed 
days with the others. St. Anthony had to walk three 
days and three nights into the desert to reach his 
mountain, yet he used to visit his monastery of Pispir 

p 



210 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



at intervals of fourteen to twenty days. In almost 
every case where we find an instance quoted which 
might make us suppose that the hermit could not com- 
municate, we find further on that he did. Abbot 
Mark, for instance, remained shut up thirty years in 
his cell without ever leaving it. We wonder how he 
received the sacraments, and we find that a priest went 
to say Mass for him every Sunday. Abbot Moses, the 
negro saint and converted robber, though he lived so 
far in the desert that he was seven days' journey from 
the inhabited country, yet had a church sufficiently 
near him to go there every Sunday to communion. 
Abbot John lived for three years on a bare rock with- 
out a covering in a most lonely desert, yet a priest 
comes to say Mass for him every Sunday. Abbot 
Paphnutius was six miles from the church at Scete, yet 
at the age of ninety he used to walk to communion 
every Saturday and Sunday. I must not, however, take 
all my instances from Egypt alone. St. John Climacus 
does not find Mount Sinai sufficiently solitary; his new 
cell is five miles from Justinian's church, yet he goes 
there to communion every Saturday and Sunday. In 
the valley of the Jordan a hermit lives for fifty years 
alone, yet continues to communicate three times a 
week. St. Auxentius lives in a wild mountain, near 
Chalcedon; his cell is in a wooden hut within a cavern. 
He exhorts all hermits who come to him to communi- 
cate on Sunday. He himself says Mass on Sunday, 
and some nuns who are under his direction come to his 
cavern to assist at it. St. Zeno lives in a tomb in 
Syria, yet goes to church on Sunday to communion. 
So does a hermit who has taken up his abode in a cliff 
overhanging the gulph of Issus in Cilicia. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



211 



If there was any one phase of monastic life in which 
we should expect to find some uncatholic practice with 
respect to the Holy Communion it would be in Syria 
and Mesopotamia. It is remarkable that in no other 
parts of the ancient world do we find any false 
mysticism amongst the monks. Not even the sojourn 
in the wild, silent desert turned the brain of the Egyp- 
tian hermits, or produced amongst them a deluded 
kind of prayer. There is some anthropomorphism, but 
not a vestige of anything approaching to quietism. 
All about them, all their sayings and their actions, 
breathe the spirit of discretion and good sense, which 
St. Anthony taught was the first of monastic virtues. 
This has been probably with reason ascribed to the 
prominence given in their rules to manual labour. In 
Syria and Mesopotamia on the contrary, the case is 
widely different. You there find heresies on the 
subject of prayer, like that of the Euchites or Mes- 
salians. You also find for the first time startling 
modes of life, pillar-saints and hermits burrowing in 
pits under ground. 

With this tendency to error in the race from which 
he sprung, one would have expected to find marks of 
fanaticism about St. Simeon Stylites. Yet no one has 
less about him of the arrogance or obstinacy of delu- 
sion. He comes down from his pillar at a word of 
advice from the neighbouring monks. He casts away 
the chain that bound him at the suggestion of a visitor. 
Above all, the good which he effected marks him out 
as an apostle. There is something wonderful in the 
apparition of this man with beautiful face and bright 
hair, raised up on high, night and day adoring God. 
He stands in the same relation to the saints of the 



212 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



solitary desert, that the Dominicans do to the cloistered 
Benedictines or Camaldolese. Not in the desert, but 
in the vicinity of vast wicked Antioch,* he stands on 
his pillar and he preaches. Once he grew weary of 
the streams of people who were continually flocking 
from all parts of the world, even from distant Britain, 
to hear him ; he bade the monks shut up the enclosure 
round his column, because he wished to be alone with 
God. At night a troop of angels came and threatened 
him for quitting the post assigned to him by God. He 
began again at once his weary work. For thirty-seven 
years his sleepless eyes looked down with pity and com- 
passion on the crowds who came to consult him. Cheer- 
fully, and with temper unruffled by the burning heat, or 
the pitiless pelting of the mountain storms, he listened 
to all and consoled them. From three o'clock in the 
afternoon till set of sun he preached from that strange 
pulpit to the most motley congregation ever assembled 
to hear the word of God. Wild Bedouin Arabs, 
mountaineers from the highlands of Armenia, and 
from the cedars of Lebanon, banditti from the 
Isaurian hills, blacks from Ethiopia, were mingled 
there with perfumed counts of the East, and prefects 
of Antioch, with Romanised Gauls and Spaniards. 
The Emperor Marcian was once among his audience. 
Even the objects of St. Chrysostom's indignant elo- 
quence, the ladies of Antioch, who never deigned to 
set their embroidered slippers on the pavement of the 
city, quitted the bazaar and their gilded palanquins to 
toil up the mountain, to catch a glimpse of the saint 

* His mountain was forty-five miles from Antioch, but easily ac- 
cessible. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



213 



outside the enclosure, within which no woman entered. 
Wicked women looked from a distance on that strange 
figure, high in air, with hands lifted up to heaven and 
body bowing down with fear of God ; and they burst 
into an agony of tears, and then and there renounced 
their sins for ever. Thousands of heathens were con- 
verted by his preaching; and an Arab chief, himself 
a pagan, ascribed it to him, that under their tents there 
were Christian bishops and priests. The savage perse- 
cution of the Christians in Persia was stopped by respect 
for his name. Many a wrong did he redress, for 
tyrants trembled at his threats ; many a sorrow did he 
soothe. A wonderful sight was that long, painful life 
of suffering and supernatural prayer, in the midst 
of that vast corrupt and effeminate East. The last 
hour of the old world had struck. Rome was twice 
sacked in his day. The old saints of the Eastern 
Church were passing away. St. Gregory Nazianzen 
died the year after he was born, St. Chrysostom fifteen 
years before he mounted his place of penance. He had 
seen Nestorius filling the chair of Constantinople, and 
though he witnessed the victories of the faith at 
Ephesus and Chalcedon, and assisted its triumph by his 
influence with successive emperors, yet the violence of 
the Latrocinium was a prelude of the coming time 
when the great patriarchal throne was soon to be 
stained with murder and usurpation. Heresy was 
eating like a canker into the noble Churches of Asia, 
and turning the monks into what they soon became, 
ignorant fanatics. From the height of his column, St. 
Simeon could see the glory fading from the degenerate 
East, and God set him up on high in that strange guise 
to be its last chance of repentance. 



214 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



Such was St. Simeon; yet we cannot help asking ner- 
vously whether, living as he did in this strange way, 
he could receive the Holy Communion. If ever it was 
likely to be true of a saint that he had a difficulty 
about the reception of the Holy Eucharist, it would 
surely be in the case of one who lived on a column 
forty feet high. Yet, in the case of no monks is there 
clearer evidence of communion than in that of the 
pillar saints.* Indeed, St. Ephrem's testimony is clear 
even in the case of the wildest hermits of Mesopotamia. 
There were some called shepherds, who led a wandering 
life, never putting their head beneath a roof, and lying 
down to rest wherever night found them; yet we know 
that they went to Mass and constantly communicated. 
Some lived in a cell, of which they walled up the door, 
and which they never quitted ; yet we incidentally hear 
of one of them that he used to receive the Holy Com- 
munion through a window. Of all the pillar saints it 
is recorded that they communicated. Of one in Cilicia 
it appears that he had the Holy Communion with him 
on his column. A story is told of St. Simeon the 
Elder in which a bishop mounts on a ladder and com- 
municates him.| He had communicated every day 
before he ascended his pillar, and could not exist 
without the Blessed Sacrament. We know that St. 
Theodulus communicated every Sunday. St. Simeon 
the Younger was miraculously communicated, became 
a priest, and said Mass on his pillar. St. Daniel the 
Stylite of Constantinople, whose pillar overlooked the 

* For these various facts, vide Bollandists, May 28, p. 766 ; May 
24, pp. 323, 389. Marin, Books 8, 9. 

f There is some ambiguity in the word Koiviovia in Evagrius, lib. 1, 
c. 13, but the fact of communion is clear independently of it. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



215 



Bosphorus, was also a priest. Thus in the most impro- 
bable cases we have record of the fact that the monks 
received the Holy Eucharist. 

Finally, we must not forget the facility with which 
the Church at that time allowed the faithful to carry 
the Blessed Sacrament with them. There are rare 
instances of hermits living at great distances from the 
churches of the monasteries, yet almost in every case 
there are reasons for thinking that they were not 
inaccessible to the Sacraments. St. Arsenius is said to 
have been thirteen leagues from a church, yet a few 
pages further on, we find him in church with the other 
monks. An old hermit lives forty miles from the church 
of Scete, yet Cassian goes to see him. Another lives 
eighteen miles away, yet two boys are sent to him with 
provisions. It was rare, indeed, that they were so cut 
off from the other hermits, that they could not either 
take the Blessed Sacrament themselves from church, or 
receive a provision of it at the hands of others. St. 
Basil expressly tells us, that the hermits took the Holy 
Eucharist with them into the desert. Even when the 
inhabitants of a laura dispersed, as they did during Lent 
into the desert, they took the Blessed Sacrament with 
them, and communicated twice a week, as we know 
from the case of St. Sabas. The Emperor Justinian 
built the fortress monastery of Sinai, because the Sara- 
cens burnt the habitations of the hermits with the 
Blessed Sacrament in them. I know but of one in- 
stance on record, where it is said expressly, that a 
Saint did not receive the Holy Communion for a long 
time together, and that is St. Mary of Egypt. She 
communicated at the Church of St. John Baptist, 
before she crossed the Jordan and plunged into the 



216 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



desert, and then only once more, when Abbot Zosimus 
gave her our Lord's Body and Blood before she died. 
In some very rare cases we may conjecture it, as, for 
instance, in that of the two naked monks, found by St. 
Macarius in an island in the midst of a marsh, and who 
had not seen a human being for forty years. St. 
Chrysostom also speaks of hermits who only communi- 
cated once in the year, or even once in two years. Yet 
over against such instances of these, we must set that 
of St. Onophrius, who lived far in the desert for 
seventy years, and who received Holy Communion 
every Sunday at the hands of an angel. The saint 
informed Paphnutius that angels also communicated 
other hermits. We may therefore conjecture that St. 
Paul, and the nameless virgin, who lived for seventeen 
years unseen by man in the desert, whither she had fled 
to preserve her chastity, were communicated in the 
same way.* 

On the whole, we may conclude that no fact in his- 
tory is better proved than that the Fathers of the 
Desert did communicate, and also that they communi- 
cated in general once, or at most twice a week, at a 
time when the faithful in the world received the Holy 
Communion three or four times a week, or even every 
day. 

This is already a fact in the history of communion 
which is worth noticing. We must not put upon it 
more than it can bear, but this much, at least, I think 
we may say: In the fourth century of the Church, and 
the beginning of the fifth, good Christians in the 
world who were most exposed to danger and tempta- 



* Marin, 7, c. 10. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



217 



tion, communicated oftener than those who were more 
holy than they. This, however you account for it, 
seems to me to be made out. Now, let us examine 
what seems to me also true; in the time when the 
Church was most powerful and brilliant, communions 
were fewest. A consideration of the history of the 
Blessed Sacrament in the middle ages will show what I 
mean. 

It is very difficult, perhaps impossible, to say when 
the old discipline of the Church went out, and Chris- 
tians began to communicate very seldom. Probably 
there was a great variety in different places. I think, 
however, that we may say on the whole, that good 
Christians still communicated once a week down to the 
time of Charlemagne, that is, the beginning of the 
ninth century. We found traces of the old, familiar 
use of the Blessed Sacrament at the end of the sixth 
century, where two women communicated at home. 
At the same time, the fervour of Christians was evi- 
dently declining, since the Council of Agde found it 
necessary to decree that all should communicate three 
times a year. From the juxtaposition of these two 
facts, it would seem that, while devout Christians still 
received our Lord frequently, the world, on the con- 
trary, required compulsion to bring them to the altar. 
At the very end of the sixth century, we know from 
St. Gregory the Great, that at Rome Sunday was still 
a day of general communion. St. Augustin, probably, 
brought over this practice with him to our country. 
Holy Communion must have been already a prominent 
feature in the Anglo-Saxon converts, when the pagan 
princes of Essex could notice and claim from St. Melli- 
tus the white bread which he used to distribute to the 



218 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



faithful, and drove him out in consequence of his re- 
fusal. But we find proof of it more expressly in the 
constitutions of St. Theodore,* Archbishop of Canter- 
bury, at the end of the seventh century, who enforces 
upon our ancestors the custom of the Church of Rome, 
where the faithful, as he tells us, received our Lord at 
least every Sunday, adding, at the same time, the im- 
portant fact that, in the Eastern Church, all clerks and 
laymen did so under pain of excommunication. We 
may believe, then, that the old devotion to the Holy 
Communion still subsisted, not only in the monasteries 
of St. Hilda and St. Etheldreda, in the royal houses of 
Chertsey, Peterborough, and Christchurch, but even in 
the parish churches of old England, scattered up and 
down our Saxon land.f I fear much, however, that 
Englishmen had degenerated before the time of the 
venerable Bede, since he complains that, in his time, 
even the devout went " unhouselled" all the year ex- 
cept on three great festivals, though numberless boys 
and girls, youths and maidens, X of most chaste lives, and 
aged persons, might have received the Body of our Lord 
every Sunday, and on the feasts of the holy apostles 
and martyrs, as was still done at Rome. 

This was in the beginning of the eighth century, but 
other churches were more devout than ours. Down to 
the middle of the ninth century, we find traces of the 

* Theodore died about 690. 

f English monasteries were especially fervent in the number of their 
communions. St. Dunstan even prescribes daily communion. In- 
deed, the Benedictines everywhere, including probably the Cluniacs 
and Cistercians, kept up the practice of weekly communion, at least, 
as late as the end of the twelfth century. Martene's Comm. in Reg. 
Ben., p. 455. 

J Lingard, Anglo-Saxon Church, 325. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



219 



existence of the feeling among the faithful, that those 
who led Christian lives should communicate every Sun- 
day- Charlemagne, in the strongest terms, inculcates 
weekly communion on the members of his vast empire. 
We know that his injunctions were not in vain, from 
the fact mentioned by a contemporary writer,* that 
some ignorant persons thought themselves bound to 
communicate at every Mass that they heard, even 
though they were present at several in one day. Ama- 
larius, an ecclesiastical writer under Louis the Debon- 
naire, strongly presses at least weekly communion on 
all good Christians. Jonas, Bishop of Orleans, is equally 
urgent for communion on all feast days. A council 
of Paris urges frequent communion on the Emperor 
Louis and his courtiers.f 

Again, it is remarkable that the Council of Aix-la 
Chapelle, held in 836, could deplore the omission of 
weekly communion as a bad custom, which had re- 
cently crept in amongst the faithful. About the year 
860 a more significant event occurred on the conversion 
of the savage Bulgarians. Wilder neophytes never 
entered the Church, yet Pope Nicholas earnestly ex- 
horted them to communicate daily during Lent. If 
such was the custom, we may safely infer that, during 
the rest of the year, communions could not be so very 
infrequent. 

From all these instances important conclusions may 
be drawn. The venerable Bede enables us to bring 
down the practice of weekly communion at Rome to 
the beginning of the eighth century, and there is no 

* Vide Chardon, Eucharistie, c. 5. 

t Vide Thomassinus de Disc. lib. 1, p. 2, 83. 



220 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



reason to suppose that it stopped then. Furthermore, 
if the civil authority could, in the ninth century, ven- 
ture to inculcate weekly communion on the faithful, 
we may be sure that the consciences of Christians 
would bear witness to the reasonableness of the require- 
ment, else it would have been impolitic and absurd. I 
think, then, we may say that, at least up to the first 
half of the ninth century, Christians kept the old devo- 
tion to the Holy Communion. On the whole, then, in 
the days of Clovis and Clotafre, of Brunhildis and Fre- 
degunda, of Charles Martel and Charlemagne, Franks 
and Germans, Saxons in England, Celtic monks in 
Iona,* in a word, good Christians in the world and in 
the cloister, in east and west, still preserved the notion 
that weekly communion was the normal state of Chris- 
tendom. 

I should feel inclined to date the commencement of 
the decline of frequent communion, among Christians 
living in the world, from the middle of the ninth 
century. The voice of the Church was still heard 
inculcating it, but the general coldness of the time, 
caused by the disorganization of the world on the 
breaking up of the empire of Charlemagne, authorizes 
us to consider that devotion to the Blessed Sacrament 
was not as great as it had previously been. It is true 
that the monasteries everywhere kept up the tradition 
of communion on the Sunday ; but when every coast 
was ravaged by pagan Normans, and no inland city on 
a river's bank was safe ; when the Saracens had posses- 
sion of the Mediterranean, and savage hordes of wild 
Magyars overran Northern Italy and Germany, the tre- 

* Vide Brockie, Codex Reg. torn, i, 224. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



221 



mendous physical suffering inflicted on Christendom 
left the faithful but little time for devotion. 

After that began a glorious time, the veritable 
Middle Ages, when for two centuries and a half the 
Church ruled the world. If ever there was a moment 
in the earth's history when the kingdom of Christ was 
an imperial power, it was from St. Gregory VII to the 
beginning of the reign of Boniface VIII. If her 
subjects were rebellious she conquered them, for the 
very world was on her side. Amidst the scepticism of 
our times, Europe seems to look back with a melancholy 
regret to the glorious Ages of Faith, to its own brief 
period of belief. Yet, strange to say, this was the 
very time when communions were few and far 
between. The culminating point of the medieval 
splendour of the Church is the fourth Lateran Council. 
Not at Nicaea itself was there a more august represen- 
tation of the Christian world. East and West were 
there re united under the See of St. Peter. More than 
four hundred bishops there swore fealty to Innocent 
III, while kings and emperors vied with ecclesiastics 
in their professions of allegiance. Yet it was precisely 
then, when the world was at her feet, that the Church 
was compelled to enact penalties against her children 
who did not communicate once a year, and to limit her 
commands to an Easter Communion, because she durst 
not require more. 

But this is not what is most striking in the case. In 
former ages the Church required three communions a 
year, but, in point of fact, the faithful communicated 
far oftener. For instance, while the Council of Adge 
only commanded then three communions, we know 
that, in the same century, a whole ship-load of sailors 



222 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



landed on a Sunday, because they would not miss their 
weekly Communion.* But in the middle ages, even 
the devout communicated very seldom. It might be 
said that the Fathers of the Lateran Council only 
required an average of one communion a year, because 
of the rudeness and ignorance of the rough warriors 
with whom they had do. With all his virtues, a 
crusader could hardly be said to be an interior man. 
They went through the world, taking and giving blows, 
fighting and battling all their lives long, those great, 
simple-hearted, grown-up children; and, like children, 
they were not allowed to communicate often, because 
they were too volatile and too ignorant to appreciate 
what they did. This is what might be said, and it is 
true, of the generality of the men of the time ; but it 
will not account for the infrequent communions of the 
religious orders, and, above all, of the saints. Let us 
put together a few facts, to make our meaning clear. 

There can be no safer way of estimating the views 
of medieval saints with respect to communion, than to 
see how often they required their religious to communi- 
cate by their rules. In all cases we shall find their 
ideas on the subject very different from ours. Take, 
for instance, the only genuine English order that ever 
was established, that of Sempringham, instituted by St. 
Gilbert, in the twelfth century .f According to his 
rule, the lay-brothers only communicated eight times a 
year. To counterbalance this, I know of but one 
instance of more frequent communion at that time. A 
poor English girl, an ecstatica, of the diocese of 
Durham, was allowed to receive our Lord every Sun- 

* Bollandists, January, torn, ii, p. 446. 
f Brockie, Cod. Reg. torn, ii, 503. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



223 



day.* There may be isolated cases of this sort, but 
they cannot outweigh the fact of the infrequent com- 
munion of a whole religious order. If there was one 
saint more than another in whose institute you would 
expect that love would take the place of fear, it would 
be that of St. Francis. Yet, here you find the same 
infrequency. There is a letter of the saint's extant, in 
which he only allows one priest of his order a day in 
each convent to say Mass.J At least, you would 
suppose that this severity would be relaxed for the 
nuns of St Clair ; yet, according to his rule, the sisters 
only communicate six times a year, and go to confession 
twelve.^ Again, the cloistered Dominicanesses are only 
allowed communion fifteen times a year, provided they 
can find confessors to hear them as often.§ There are, 
indeed, isolated instances of rather more frequent com- 
munion, as in the case of the sisters of St. Mary of 
Humility, who are commanded by Urban IV to com- 
municate once a fortnight, and in Lent and Advent 
every Sunday ;|| but this is an exception, occurring in a 
small congregation, and cannot outweigh the practice 
of the far more numerous and important orders of St. 
Francis and St. Dominic. Another safe standard to 

* Bollandists, February, torn, ii, 102. 

f See his works, p. 94. The saint, indeed, recommends frequent 
communion to the faithful, but " frequent" is a relative term, and 
must be interpreted by the practice of his time, and his own views 
elsewhere expressed. Brockie, 3, 40. 

J This, of course, is the minimum, and it may be that individuals 
communicated oftener. Yet, what should we say to such a minimum 
in our day ? The Council of Trent orders double that number of 
communions, but even that appears little to us. Brockie, Cod. Reg, 
3, 34. 

§ Brockie, Cod. Reg. 4, 132. 

|| Garampi, Memorie della B. Chiara de Rimini, p. 516. 



224 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



ascertain the number of communions of the devout is 
the rule of the third orders. They consisted of those 
who, though living in the world, yet did their best to 
serve God in a perfect way. They were the very elite 
of the laity; yet the brethren and sisters of the third 
order of St. Dominic, by their rule, only communicated 
four times a year. Another remarkable instance is 
that of St. Louis. If he had lived now you may be 
sure he would have communicated every day. His 
austere life, his deep conscientiousness, the generous 
self-devotion with which he risked all in the crusades 
for the love of Christ; all this would surely have 
entitled him to receive the Blessed Sacrament more 
frequently than his contemporaries. Yet, he who 
declared that the only measure of the love of God was 
to love without measure, was treated in such a nig- 
gardly way by his confessor that his ordinary number 
of communions was six times a year.* Later on in the 
century, St. Louis of Toulouse,f when a layman, only 
received our Lord on the principal festivals, and St. 
Elizabeth of Portugal three times a year. J A modern 
devout person would not be satisfied at being put on 
such an allowance as that. 

What can be the reason of the scanty communions 
of the middle ages? Surely Godfrey de Bouillon and 
the brave men who won back Jerusalem, and wept tears 
out of their simple hearts over the cold stone where 
Christ was laid, deserved to receive His Body oftener 

* Bollandists, Aug. torn. 5. p, 581. " Ut minimum" is the expres- 
sion of his biographer; on which the Bollandists observe, " Id pro 
tempore videbatur frequenter communicare." 

f Bollandists, August, torn, iii, p. 809. 

% Bollandists, July, torn, ii, p. 181. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



225 



than a modern layman. To use it is a mystery which 
I am scarcely prepared to solve ; yet this much we may 
aver — certainly if their needs had been as great as 
ours, the saints of those days would have urged them to 
more frequent communion. They had then fewer 
impediments on the way to heaven; even the world was 
less poisonous and sins less malicious. At all events, 
whether my theory is right or not, such is the fact. 
There was less danger and there were fewer sacraments. 
This will be made more apparent still, if it appears that 
simultaneously with the period when the middle ages 
give place to modern times, a more systematic struggle 
appears in the Church for frequent Communion. 

Then came two terrible centuries, most difficult to 
characterize, the fourteenth and the fifteenth. The 
world had lost in a great measure the supernatural prin- 
ciples of the middle ages, and had not attained to the 
Pelagian virtues of modern times. I should call them 
the most unprincipled centuries of the Christian era. 
In the fourteenth, Rome is desolate and the Popes are 
at Avignon, and the great schism begins. In the 
beginning of the fifteenth the great schism continues 
to afflict the Church. France is suffering horrors at 
the hands of the English ; then comes the time of God's 
vengeance on England, and of the Wars of the Roses ; 
while the last years of the century are disgraced by 
Caesar Borgia. Such is the public aspect of those two 
hundred years; now let us try to look into the hearts 
of the suffering souls who were trying to serve God 
during this awful time. I believe that a dispassionate 
study of the devotional history of the time will lead us 
to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit was ever striving 
to introduce the frequentation of the Sacraments, while 



226 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



He was ever frustrated by the coldness and indifference 
of men. I form this opinion from the altered tone of 
the advice given by the saints and holy men of the time 
with respect to Holy Communion ; and also from the 
increasing desire for the Blessed Sacrament in the 
saints, a desire often miraculously satisfied in spite of 
the opposition of men. No attentive reader of the 
records of the time can fail to perceive that the Holy 
Communion occupies a place in the practical teaching 
of the fourteenth, which it did not in the twelfth or 
thirteenth century. Let us, now attempt to trace the 
history of this strup-ale. 

Things seem to have come to their worst in the thir- 
teenth century. Even the Benedictines and their off- 
shoots, who had been faithful to their old rule of com- 
munion eveiy Sunday, now began to relax. They 
required a decree of the Council of Vienne to compel 
them to communicate once a month * In a Cistercian 
monastery, we find that the novices only communicated 
three times a year, and it required a divine punishment 
to compel the abbess to allow St. Lutgardis to commu- 
nicate one a week.j It was far worse among those 
who lived in the world; if we take, for instance, medie- 
val England, Sunday after Sunday, and even Michael- 
mas, and All Saints, and Christmas passed, and yet 
there Avas no communion in many a parish church ; the 
altars were desolate till Easter-day came round. Alex- 
ander of Hales tells us that, at the beginning of the 
century, " on account of the wickedness of men, they 
are hardly able to communicate once a year, as they 
are bound to do." Duns Scot us in his day bears pre- 

* Martene, Comment, in Reg. S. Bev. p. 454. 

t Bollandists, April, torn, ii, p. 182 ; June, torn, iii, 246. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



227 



cisely the same witness to the scantiness of communion 
in his time* Towards the end of the century there 
are some faint symptoms of amelioration in religious 
houses. For instance, St. Ida is allowed by the Pope 
to receive every day. In the writings of St. Bonaven- 
ture there are traces of better things. f Our Lord Him- 
self encourages the dear penitent, St. Margaret of 
Cortona, to communicate every day. But there is not 
a shadow or sign of improvement in the world.} 

Let us now turn to the fourteenth century. One of 
the most tempest-tossed portions of the Church of God 
in this fearful period was Germany ; and one of the 
most alarming signs of the times was the multitude of 
strange and wild opinions which sprung up everywhere, 
but especially in the Rhineland and in Swabia. But 
the most startling indication of danger to the Church 
is a system of Pantheism breaking out amongst the 
very champions of orthodoxy, the great Dominican 
order. To extract Pantheism out of St. Thomas might 
have seemed a hopeless task ; yet there was one point 
where a subtle mind might wrest from their legitimate 
meaning the words of the angelic doctor, and contrive 
to merge all existence in God. It was just possible so 
to interpret St. Thomas's view of the utter dependence 
of the creature on the Creator, and of the necessity of 
God's concurrence in all our actions, into a denial of 
free will and consequently of personality.' It was 

* Instances of more frequent communions in the case of saints are to 
be found, but they are rare. St. Aleydis, a Cistercian nun, and St. 
Christina, called the Wonderful, communicated every Sunday. Vide 
Bollandists, June, torn, iii, 247 ; July, torn, v, 6o4. 

f He grudgingly allows lay-brothers to communicate once a week. 
De Perf. Rel. ii, 77. 

t On the Communions of the Middle Ages, see further, Appendix G. 



228 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



precisely on the doctrine of creation that Master 
Eckhart built up the doctrines which the Church con- 
demned in him. They have been sometimes traced to 
the teaching of Scot Erigena. They appear to me 
however, to be the indigenous growth of the time. 
Their speculative basis appears to have been the least 
important part of them. Eckhart seems to have been 
urged into Pantheism by the universal cry of agony 
around him. " Unite yourselves to God, lose yourself 
in Him, merge yourselves in the great Godhead, and 
for that purpose remain passive ; renounce your own 
acts, and become nothing as you really are ;" such was 
Eckhart's answer to the cries of despair addressed to him 
by souls who felt the strong foundation on which they 
had relied trembling under them, and knew not what 
to do. He was no dreaming solitary or unpractical 
schoolman ; he threw himself like a brave man into the 
terrible whirlpool around him, to grasp at sinking souls 
and save them. He was a great preacher, a great spiritual 
director, as is every day being further brought to light 
by the discovery of documents written by him to the 
nuns who applied to him for advice. It is easy to see 
how the language of such a school of mysticism might 
degenerate into Pantheism, and, accordingly, Eckhart 
was condemned by John XXII. He instantly recanted, 
and in consequence of his ready submission, his in- 
fluence was not much injured by his condemnation. 
His tone of thought is visible in the writings of Tauler 
and the Blessed Henry Suso, though they carefully 
take out the sting from his doctrines by qualifying his 
Pantheistic expressions. 

Such was the origin of the mystical school of the 
fourteenth century, the only Catholic one which, at 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



229 



that time, had any real influence over Germany. Now, 
it had one characteristic which has never been noticed, 
and which is fully as much marked as its language, 
about the absolute union of the creature with God; I 
mean its devotion to the Blessed Sacrament. The 
movement might be called a crusade in favour of the 
revival of frequent communion. It is to be found in 
Eckhart as well as in Tauler, and the strong spirit which 
had roused all Germany becomes tender as a child when 
he speaks of the blessed fruits of frequent communion.* 
From it Tauler borrowed his devotion to the great 
Sacrament of the altar, and never is he more earnest 
than in his exhortations to receive the Blessed Eucharist. 
What is still more remarkable, he entreats his hearers 
to communicate often, especially on account of the 
dangers of the times, and their own great weakness. 
In his sermon, for instance, on the Feast of the exalta- 
tion of the Cross, in addressing a convent of Dominican 
nuns, he expresses himself not satisfied with the custom 
of communicating once a fortnight which prevailed 
then.j He urges more frequent communion, and says : 
" I, for my part, with my whole heart and soul entreat 
and desire that this most holy practice may not decrease 
or grow languid in this most perilous time ; for men's 
natures are not now so strong as they were. A man 
must cling to God with all his might, or he will fall. 

* The long chapter 39 on the Holy Eucharist, in Tauler's Insti- 
tutes, is really Eckhart's. It is published in the new collection of 
German mystics, by Pfeiffer, p. 373. Vide also p. 565. 

f Tanler, in the same sermon, claims for the Dominican order the 
constant practice of frequent communion. Certainly communion once 
a fortnight would have been considered very frequent in the prece- 
ding century. 



230 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



Time was when such struggles were not necessary ; it 
was well once to go to communion once a fortnight. 
That was enough for the perfection and sanctity of that 
time, when men were stronger than now, and such rare 
communion was not so hurtful as it would be now to 
our most feeble nature, which is much more inclined to 
evil than formerly." It was not only within the cloister 
that he spoke thus. He implies in another place that 
even those who are married may communicate every day 
if they are fit.* Again, he expresses his willingness in 
a remarkable passage to give frequent communion to a 
repentant sinner. After declaiming against tepid com- 
munions, he goes on : " If a man wishes to be good and 
avoids occasions of sin ? he is to be commended for com- 
municating every week; I, for my part, if I saw a 
most foul sinner really penitent for his sins, and con- 
verted to God, I would more willingly give him com- 
munion daily, for six months than to those tepid men, 
for I believe that, in this way, I should by degrees 
extinguish sin in him."f 

Tauler's crusade^ was certainly successful in intro- 
ducing frequent communion into the Rhineland. At 
the end of the century it was taken up by a more 
distinguished Dominican. During the horrible days of 
the great schism, when the minds of good Christians 
were more at sea than ever they were since Christen- 
dom existed, our Lord in His mercy raised up St, 
Vincent Ferrer, one of the most wonderful of saints, 
to console his faithful ones. Throughout the length 

* Serm. 2, on Corpus Christi. 
f Serm. 1, on Corpus Christi. 

t In Serm. 4, on Corpus Christi, he says that Communion was 
frequent at Cologne. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



231 



and breadth of Europe he went, converting sinners. 
But the most remarkable instance of his power was the 
company which he formed, and which followed him 
everywhere. Thousands of men and women accom- 
panied him wherever he went, and he formed them into 
a vast society with peculiar rules. It was most wonder- 
ful, in the midst of that corrupt and wicked generation, 
to see so large a body made up of such dangerous 
elements, going from one large city to another, with 
all the order and discipline of an army. There were 
amongst them penitents who had committed the foulest 
sins, pirates who had scuttled ships on the high seas, 
robbers, assassins, and dealers in the black art, con 
verted Turks and Jews, and abandoned women, the 
very scum of the great towns in Europe, all lately won 
by the saint from Satan to Christ. All nations were 
represented there, all ranks, from the noble to the serf. 
Yet, amidst the vast company, a scandal was unknown. 
Men wondered how the saint could rule them, but we 
cease to wonder when we know that it was one of 
St. Vincent's rules that the whole company should com- 
municate at least once a week, and at all great festivals. 
The saint's great instrument of conversion was the 
Word of God ; his rule for perseverance was frequent 
communion. 

St. Vincent died, but a third Dominican took up his 
work. The world was a bad world when the saint 
died in 1419, at Vannes, but it had become far worse 
when Savonarola began to preach at Florence, as the 
wicked century was verging to its close. The abomi- 
nation of desolation was standing in holy places, but 
the brave friar began his crusade undauntedly. Instead 
of appealing to fragments from Aristotle and Seneca, 



232 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



backed by quotations from Ovid's Metamorphoses, as 
•was the wont with preachers then, he spoke of the 
blessed name of Jesus, and of His love to us in the 
Holy Eucharist. His success was even greater than 
that of Tauler at Cologne. The Blessed Sacrament 
was enthroned king of Florence. Every day at St. 
Mark's, says his biographer., was like Easter morning.* 
At first he durst only recommend to the multitude 
communion four times a year ? but the plague breaks 
out, and the battle with spiritual powers in high places 
becomes more terrible, and he bids his children commu- 
nicate oftener, even once a week, because " nothing 
will unite them to Christ like the Holy Communion." 
Happy for him if he had confined himself to preaching 
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament; his end would 
have been less tragic, and his sanctity less equivocal. 
His awful sorrows and the hangman's cord have 
probably long ago expiated his faults, and freed him 
from purgatory; but his chief title to our love will 
ever be that he passed on to St. Philip the tradition of 
frequent communion. 

But while these brave hearts were struggling for 
Christ in the great world, there arose others in the 
cloister who were praying and suffering for Him. 

During the whole of these two terrible centuries, 
our Lord had expressed His desire to His spouses in the 
cloister that they should communicate more frequently 
than they were allowed by their spiritual guides. Open 
the Revelations of St. Gertrude, who died probably in 
1 344 ? f you will find Him complaining to her expressly 

* Burlamacchi. p. 77- Regole del benvivere, p. 216; Ed. Quetif. 
Regole, x, p. 200; Ep. xiii, p. 248. 

t This is the latest assignable date. The dates given vary from 
1290 to 1344. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



233 



of those who would not allow those who were dear to 
Him, to receive Him as often as they would. After her 
came one who had more influence upon her contempo- 
raries than any woman since the beginning of Chris- 
tianity, St. Catherine of Sienna. No one promoted 
frequent communion like that great saint. Not even 
Tauler's fervent eloquence had the power in it which 
all felt when they came into the presence of that out- 
wardly helpless girl. In spite of the opposition of 
prelates and priests, she carried her point. Our Lord 
inspired the Blessed Raymond of Capua to allow her to 
communicate wdienever she would, and when once or 
twice the opposition of those around her prevented her 
from receiving His Blessed Body, our Lord communi- 
cated her Himself. She had but to say " Father, I am 
hungry," and Raymond at once said Mass to give her 
the Blessed Sacrament. 

A few weeks before St. Catherine's death there began 
one of those lives of tremendous suffering which are 
wont to occur above all in times of peculiar wickedness. 
In 1433, in an obscure town in Holland, there flew to 
heaven a soul pure as an angel, and refined by super- 
natural suffering. St. Lidwina had already undergone 
bodily pains which would have furnished forth a 
hundred martyrdoms. But, in addition to all this, she 
had to bear the hardheartedness and cruelty of those 
whose office it would have been to console her. When 
she was able to go to the church, the priest would only 
allow her to receive her Lord twice a year, and when 
she was stretched upon her bed of unexampled suffer- 
ing, he even then refused to bring the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, the only possible consolation in her incredible 
pains. After she had borne brutal and public insults, 



2U 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



our Lord Himself interposed, and by the miracle of a 
bleeding Host, compelled the parish-priest to allow her 
to receive Him when she chose.* 

The same opposition and the same triumph were 
visible in the case of St. Catherine of Genoa, and St. 
Columba of Rieti. The holy firmness of St. Catherine 
conquered all resistance from those who blamed her, 
while the sanctity of the Blessed Columba was insuffi- 
cient to procure her the Blessed Sacrament more than 
once a month, and on the Feasts of our Lady,| till 
Jesus Himself miraculously brought a foreign bishop to 
advise her daily communion. 

I could instance other saints and devout persons in 
and out of the cloister, who at this time communicated 
oftener than was usual, in the first half of the thirteenth 
century. The blessed Emilia was encouraged by our 
Lord Himself to communicate every Sunday, Thursday, 
and Friday. i The Blessed Clara, a Beguine of Rimini, 
who died in 132(5, communicated every Sunday, Wed- 
nesday, and Friday. Charles, Duke of Brittany, who 
was killed in battle in 1371, did so on Sundays and all 
great feasts. The Blessed Collette, the Reformer§ of 
the poor Clares, often received our Lord every day for 
a year together. The Blessed Baptista Yarani, a poor 
Clare, communicated every Sunday. And so did the 
Blessed Osanna, a Dominicaness: while the Blessed M. 
Bagnesi, of the same order, for twenty years of her 
life received our Lord three, four, or even six times a 
week. Towards the latter end of her life, St. Francesca 

* Bollandists, April, torn, ii, 330, 335. 

f Boil., September, torn, v, 162; May, torn, v, 330, 331. 

i. Boll., May, torn, vii, 562. 

§ Boll., March, torn, i, 564. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



235 



Romana communicated once a week. The Blessed 
Galeotto Malatesta, who died in 1432, received ordina- 
rily every Sunday;* and the Blessed Helen of Udine, 
tertiary of the order of Hermits of St. Augustine, who 
died in 1 458, communicated every day. These instances 
amongst others prove a great increase upon the pre- 
ceding period. 

Such is the history of communion during these two 
centuries. Our Lord was ever striving to promote 
among the faithful the more frequent reception of the 
Blessed Sacrament, while in the world matters are ever 
growing worse and worse. The struggle between the 
powers of light and darkness grew more fierce, and was 
brought to an issue in the sixteenth century. St. 
Ignatius and his companions were nearly brought before 
the inquisition for communicating once a week. One 
of the early Fathers of the Oratory got himself ordained 
priest because he could not obtain communion from the 
priests of the time, so strongly were men of the world set 
against the frequentation of the sacraments by the laity. 

Who was to resuscitate these dry bones, and to in- 
fuse warmth into hearts which were arid as dust and 
ashes? "A dry, sharp wind wonder cold," like that 
which the English ecstaticaj describes as blowing over 
the earth, u what time our Blessed Saviour died upon 
the rood," seemed to have withered up the very soul of 
the world. All at once in the very central seat of 
Christendom, as was befitting, the fire of love broke 
out, and spread to the ends of the earth. St. Ignatius 

* His biography calls this very frequent communion. For this and 
other instances, vide Garampi's Legend of Blessed Clara of Rimini, 
p. 178. 

f The B. Juliana of Norwich, eighth revelation. 



236 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



began the work of restoring the general use of frequent 
communion among the multitude of the faithful ; but 
the actual apostolate of Rome was confided to St. 
Philip's hands. It was a marvellous Providence that, 
at the very moment when the Pelagian spirit of modern 
times was about to seize upon the world, the Holy 
Ghost should stir up the preaching of a new crusade in 
favour of the frequent reception of the Sacrament of 
Love. No power short of that of God could have 
wrought the change. Things had come to such a pass 
that an opinion was commonly held that the Church 
had forbidden communion more than once a year.* 
Learned menf and doctors are cited as bitter opponents 
of the movement. Cacciaguerra, a companion of St. 
Philip in the great work, says that it was with great 
difficulty that souls thirsting for the Blessed Sacrament 
could find priests to give it to them. As late as 1580, 
when weekly communion was introduced into the mo- 
nastery of San Cosimato at Rome, it was thought to be 
a miracle. An author of the time says that, when 
ladies went to communion, they used to begin their 
confession a month beforehand 4 For seven years St. 
Philip and Cacciaguerra underwent a persecution § so 
harassing and wearing, that the saint, in the anguish of 
his heart, lifting up his eyes to the crucifix as he was 
saying Mass, cried out, " Oh ! good Jesus, why wilt 
Thou not hear me? For so long a time and with such 

* Cacciaguerra, Trattato della S. Communione, lib. I, c. 12. 
t Cacciaguerra, Dedication. 
$ Garampi, 510, 516. 

§ From 1552 to 1559; it appears that the persecutions mentioned in 
Bacci, lib. i, 16, were in consequence of St. Philip's movement in 
favour of frequent communion. Compare Marangoni's Life of Caccia- 
guerra, c. 19. 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



237 



agony have I asked for patience, and Thou hast not 
heard me ?" They were delated to prelates and cardi- 
nals, and threatened with the Inquisition. Meanwhile 
in the little church of San Girolamo della Carita a 
blessed work went on which was destined to change 
the face of Christendom. A spectacle was seen there, 
which had not been witnessed for many a century. 
"There," says an eye witness, " many persons used to 
communicate, some every Sunday, others three or four 
times a week, others even every day, so that each morn- 
ing looked like Easter-day." "There every Sunday," 
shortly after the beginning of the movement, " at least 
three hundred persons used to approach the altar, and on 
week days at least seventy, a thing which in those times 
was very wonderful, and did not come to pass without 
great tribulation for the servant of God and his com- 
panions." We may estimate by this sentence how great 
was the need and small were the beginnings of that 
revolution which first spread through Rome, and then 
was felt to the end of the Catholic Church. We feel 
it to this day. Those seventy communicants were the 
nucleus of millions of communions. What St. Cathe- 
rine of Sienna spent her life in preaching, what Tauler, 
St. Vincent Ferrer, and Savonarola fought for, St. 
Philip brought to pass. To counterbalance the fearful 
dangers which encompass us since the Reformation, 
the Holy Spirit inspired the saint to inaugurate a move- 
ment in favour of frequent communion, which from 
that day to this has never ceased. 

And now, after this long review of the history of 
communion in the Church, what are the conclusions to 
which we may fairly come? I think we may be said 
to have arrived at three. 



238 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



First, of the eighteen centuries of the existence of 
the Church, there were only four, the tenth, eleventh, 
twelfth, and thirteenth, during which infrequent com- 
munion reigned, without a visible movement against it, 
among persons living in the world. I conclude from 
this that frequent communion is the normal state of the 
Church. 

Secondly, this conclusion is still further strengthened, 
when we remember that, up to the end of the twelfth 
century, in all monasteries under the Benedictine rule, 
the inmates communicated every Sunday. To appreciate 
the full force of this fact, let us recollect the enormous 
number of Benedictine, Cluniac, and Cistercian monas- 
teries scattered all over Christendom. We must also 
reflect that devotion, at that time, was nearly coincident 
with the cloister. It will, therefore, reduce the time 
of unresisted, infrequent communion in the case of the 
devout to the thirteenth century, with the additional 
drawback of symptoms of an increase in communion 
towards the latter end of it. 

Thirdly, I think it has been proved that the frequency 
of communion is regulated, partly at least, by the class 
of dangers to which the faithful are exposed. If this 
is the case, then, let us avoid, in this matter at least, imi- 
tating the middle ages. I say nothing about medieval 
art, which I entirely put out of the question, for I am 
not writing a treatise on aesthetics. But if there be one 
ao-e of the Church more than another, the virtues and 
the vices, the wants and dangers of which are utterly 
unlike our own, it is the medieval time. For some time 
past a notion has got abroad that the middle ages are 
the model period of the Church of Christ. I do not 
think this true, and if untrue, it is mischievous and un- 



HISTORY OF COMMUNION. 



239 



real. The times in which we live are so utterly unlike 
the age of St. Bernard and St. Thomas that we can 
only imitate its externals : and the result can only be a 
sham. Our work is to deal with children of the nine- 
teenth century ; they are flocking into the Church every 
day, and we have got to make good Catholics of them, 
to mould good children of the Church out of the cool, 
contemptuous Englishman, with habits of rampant, in- 
dependent judgment and universal criticism. It is in 
vain to educate them, unless you make them devout. 
The problem is, how to make them good, humble Chris- 
tians. Our restless intellects, however, and habits of 
subtle introspection, our turbid, agitated hearts and un- 
disciplined feelings, can only be quieted by stronger 
spells than were sufficient for our ancestors. A revival 
is now taking place, full of consolation, yet full of 
anxiety. To guide it, I believe the method of the 
primitive Church more effectual than that of the middle 
ages. It may seem a paradox to say so, but the age in 
which we live is far more like the first a^es of Chris- 
tianity than like the Church of St. Gregory VII. Surely 
the tone of society in which we are resembles that of 
the Romans of the time of Commodus rather than that 
of the Crusaders. True, there is no persecution. I am 
far from forgetting that : but for that very reason the 
world is a hundredfold more dangerous. What will 
save us from it? Nothing but love, and where shall 
we find love except in frequent communions. 

Surely, however, you will say, danger is not the only 
condition for often receiving the Blessed Sacrament. 
Reader, I did not say that it was. There must be a 
limit, and we shall by and by attempt to ascertain it. 



240 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



CHAPTER II. 

SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



Why did Jesus come down from heaven and become 
man? For us men and for our salvation. If man had 
never fallen, He would have descended in another guise, 
and for another purpose. But we have not at this 
moment anything to do with the splendours of a possi- 
ble Incarnation, or the order of the Divine decrees. 
We have not even to consider the many other ends 
which are actually fulfilled by our Lord's assumption 
of our nature, such as the glory of His Heavenly Father. 
The Sacraments are the great instruments by which our 
actual salvation, as individuals, is effected, the channels 
of the Precious Blood to each one of us. In treating, 
therefore, of any of them, not as it is in itself, but as 
it is received by us, we necessarily come across sin and 
sinners. Even the most glorious Sacrament of the 
Altar has to do with the destruction of sin, and in 
writing on the Holy Communion we must consider its 
relations to sinners. The most delicate and difficult 
part of its administration has to do with its application 
as a remedy for the many disorders of our fallen nature. 
Here a priest has all sorts of dangers to avoid ; he may 
be rigorous or he may be lax ; and the difficulty princi- 
pally lies in the fact, that the right conduct is not an 
accurate mean between two extremes. The same priest 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



241 



has at times to be as severe as a judge, at other times to 
be tender as a mother. The measure of the distribu- 
tion of the Body and Blood of Jesus is neither a rule 
of wood, nor, like Aristotle's Lesbian one, of lead; 
rather it is no rule at all, but a living spirit. It can 
hardly be defined ; it can only be described. Happily 
for us, we have the Church to guide us. In the last 
chapter we saw what had been the practice of saints and 
holy men with respect to the communion of the devout ; 
we must now consider the discipline of the Church in 
the distribution of the Bread of Life to sinners. 

There is an expression in frequent use among theo- 
logians, which may be set side by side with the words 
of the creed which we have just quoted. Who can hear 
without a thrill of joy the glorious song, " Propter nos 
homines et propter nostram salutem?" There are other 
words very like them which ought to be written over 
every confessional in Christendom, or, at least in the 
heart of every priest — " Sacramenta propter homines." 
Nor is the juxtaposition of the two sentences at all 
arbitrary; there is a living connexion between them; 
the one flows out of the other. Proclaim it aloud; go 
ye into all nations. God has come down to earth and 
has become man, for us men and for our salvation. 
He is Jesus, the Saviour. Has He then abrogated His 
old laws, and dashed to earth, like His servant of old, 
the tables of the decalogue? No; he came not to 
destroy but to fulfil the law. The eternal laws of God 
cannot lose their force ; God Himself cannot abrogate 
them, because He cannot cease to be Himself. To 
give licence to sin would not be the way to save man- 
kind. Jesus Himself, therefore, is at times severe. Has 
not the same voice that absolved the Magdalene said 

R 



242 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



also, Woe unto you, ye hypocrites? Yet, at the same 
time, how marvellously flexible is His conduct ! See 
how like a serpent is the gentle Dove in His conversa- 
tion with the woman of Samaria ! He winds Himself 
into the inmost recesses of that dark heart, by adapting 
Himself to every turning of its labyrinths ; He glides 
round her prejudices, instead of breaking through 
them, till at last He holds that wild, capricious soul in 
the folds of His all-embracing love. Just so flexible, 
and yet so severe are the Sacraments. Never rigid, 
even in their severity, as though they were living things, 
they never forget that they have to do with men. Now, 
the very characteristic of our strange, double nature is 
its changeableness. It is unlike the angels, both in 
good and evil. It has neither their fixedness in virtue 
nor their horrible tenacity in sin ; and the Sacraments, 
which are meant for our healing, adapt themselves in all 
instances to our mercurial being. Whenever their laws 
are stern, it is because of some reason founded in our 
weakness, while their general flexibility is owing to their 
being made for men, according to the axiom which we 
have quoted. 

Let us take, for instance, the Sacrament of Penance. 
Absolution is inexorably refused in all cases of volun- 
tary approximate occasions of sin. In other words, no 
man is judged worthy of pardon who wilfully remains 
in a position where he is in peril of committing sin, when 
he might avoid the danger, by breaking off the occa- 
sion. The Church knows human nature too well to 
allow the feeble child of Adam to trust himself within 
reach of the tempter's net. He may protest that he 
will not sin, but he is not made of adamant, and his 
will, in all probability, will change in the presence of 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



243 



temptation. At all events, in such a frail creature as 
he, the very wish to place himself in peril is a proof 
that he does not appreciate the horror of the sin; and, 
notwithstanding all his protestations, he must break off 
the occasion, or go away unabsolved. How different 
is the administration of the Sacrament with respect to 
the recidive ! How flexible are the sternest laws ; how 
varied the application of the widest principles ! Never 
must absolution be given unless the confessor has a 
moral certainty of the firm resolve of the penitent never 
to sin again. Such is the principle; yet, let but a 
relapsed sinner present himself, who is in danger of 
despair if he goes away unabsolved, and the sternest 
theology at once unbends ; the confessor must condition- 
ally absolve him, however doubtful he may be of the 
dispositions of the penitent.* Again, theologians say 
that no man is worthy of absolution who would not 
rather die there and then than commit the sin again , 
yet the confessor is especially warned never to present 
such an alternative before the sinner; in other words, 
the rule, though speculatively true, is not applicable in 
practice, since it has reference to a nature so timid and 
frightened at virtue as that of man. The confessor 
takes refuge in the very changeableness of the frail 
creature before him, to persuade himself that there is 
now, at least, in the penitent's heart, a sovereign act of 
detestation of sin, though he knows full well, by a sad 
experience, that not improbably this transient act will, 
before a week is out, have yielded before the demon 
power of habit. He contents himself with such proofs 
of the efficacious resolve of the sinner as the mere fact 

* Vide Cardinal Gousset, Theologie Morale, Traite de la Peni- 
tence, c. v, No. 473, also principles laid down c. x, No. 555. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



of his continuing to come to confession when there is no 
external call,* or a longer resistance before falling, all 
which would be absurdly inadequate to the speculative 
principles laid down, if he did not remember that he 
was dealing with a nature changeable as the wind and 
unstable as water. Any theology which forgot this, how- 
ever logically true, would be practically false, and any 
confessor who acted upon it, would be at once a rigorist. 

Rigorism, then, may be described to be the forget- 
fulness of the axiom, "sacramenta propter homines. 1 ' It 
is not severity but inflexibility ; it is the wooden appli- 
cation of rules without remembering how far they are 
to bend before varieties of time, place, and persons. Bear- 
ing these principles in mind, let us look for examples 
severally of severity and rigorism with respect to Holy 
Communion, in different periods of the Church's history, 

Never had the Church of God, in her wrestling with 
the world, a harder task to play than in the early ages 
of her existence. We know how prodigal she was of 
the Blessed Sacrament to her devout children, but what 
was she to do with the sinful, of whom there were not 
a few? It is a wonderful siodit to see the Church 
struD-orlino; with the old heathen world. Christians are 
bad enough, but eighteen hundred years of Christianity 
have, at least, fixed firmly in the public conscience 
certain principles which not even sin can wash out. 
There is one God ; there are eternal principles of right 
and wrong ; every man has a soul to be saved or lost. 
You know how to deal with men who have a conscience. 
But when that very conscience has got to be resusci- 

* Such is the opinion of Segneri and other theologians. St. Alphonso 
agrees adding prsecise — si psenitens ut accederet ad sacramentum no- 
tabilem conatum adhibuit, lib. vi, 460. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



245 



tated, is it not like creating a soul under the ribs of 
death ? It is a spectacle worth seeing, the sacraments at 
work upon such materials as that, the crucifix making- 
its way into that great heathen Rome, where Nero 
was emperor, with Poppcea by his side. Humanly 
speaking, it was not easy to make nominal Christians of 
them, but it was hard, indeed, really to Christianize the 
lazy loungers who daily occupied the marble seats in 
the baths of Diocletian or Caracalla, who frequented 
the theatres, where obscenity had ceased to be infamous, 
and haunted the Suburra, or revelled in the blood of 
the dying gladiator. While the little flock met in the 
hired house of St. Paul, there was little need of 
casuistry, but when, long afterwards, the majority of 
the twelve hundred thousand souls* crowded into the 
twelve miles of wall which surrounded Rome had be- 
come Christians, then, indeed, the Church had need 
of all her wisdom in the administration of the sacra- 
ments. Was she to be as prodigal of the Holy Com- 
munion to the relapsed sinner as to him who had kept 
his baptismal robe ? Everything proves to us that tares 
soon began to grow among the wheat. The presence 
of heresy is a clear proof of this; if no miraculous 
interposition of Providence preserved the Church from 
the presence of heresy, if the rampant intellect of man 
was allowed to exercise itself on the dogmas of Chris- 
tianity, it is not likely that Christianity should have 
vanquished without struggle the moral part of man. 
Besides, of the heresies which, by the time of St. 
Irenseus and of Hippolytus, had sprung up in the 
Church, many were accompanied by foul and dreadful 

* This is Gibbon's calculation. A later authority makes it two 
millions, vide Conybeare and Howson, vol. ii, 377. 



246 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



sins. The wild Cainites who worshipped the principle 
of evil, were baptized Christians; among the fifty sects 
of Gnostics, many disgraced the Christian name by 
their vices; and while, on the distant shores of the 
Black Sea, Marcion was infamous at once by his disso- 
luteness and his error, the civilization of France did not 
preserve the Gallic Church from such dealers in the 
black art as the licentious Mark, at once a wizard and 
a heretic. With all this wickedness around her, it is not 
wonderful that the Church was severe. All that I main- 
tain is, that even when most severe, she was never rigid. 

First, at no period of her existence did the Church 
change her discipline with respect to sinners so com- 
pletely as in the five first centuries; never did she 
adapt herself more marvellously to the times. There 
is a strange superstition, for I can call it nothing else, 
in the minds of men about that early Church. It 
seems to be a great unknown void, in which the imagi- 
nation of man may exercise itself at will. No man 
approaches it without some preconceived theory, ac- 
cording to which he interprets the vague forms which 
he sees, or dreams he sees, moving about in the dim 
morning light. One of the strangest instances of the 
intrusion of prejudice into history is the mode in which 
writers have treated questions which concern the dis- 
cipline of the early Church. The purer the Church, it 
is argued, the more severe it must be in punishing sin ; 
now, the Church was purest at its source, therefore it 
was most severe. There are few of us who, some time 
in our lives, have not been the victims of such reason- 
ing as this. Then, to help our imagination, comes some 
canon of St. Basil, condemning a sinner to a penance 
of thirty years; and, from the inveterate habit which 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



247 



we have of flinging confusedly together all that comes 
out of the Fathers into that one great vague category, 
called the early Church, we straightway assume that, 
in the first century, sinners were treated as they were 
in the fourth. The facts of the case, however, are 
precisely the contrary. The Church began with lenity. 
More than two centuries elapsed before she tried the 
experiment of severity.* A better type of the method 
of the early Church cannot be found than that which 
is furnished by the case of the incestuous Corinthian. 
How fiery is the indignation of the great apostle ! how 
terribly solemn his denunciation ! Listen to his sen- 
tence : " In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, you 
being gathered together, and my spirit with the power 
of our Lord Jesus, to deliver such a one to Satan for 
the destruction of the flesh, . . . With such an one 
not so much as to eat." Yet, even at the moment that 
he was writing this, all the mother in the apostle was 
roused, and he was yearning for his child. " Out of 
much affliction and anguish of heart I wrote to you 
with many tears." In the course of a very few months 
the excommunicated man is absolved. " You should 
rather pardon and comfort, lest, perhaps, such an one 
should be swallowed up with over-much sorrow." In 
the spring of a.d. 57 the excommunication was pro- 
nounced ; before the autumn leaves had fallen at Corinth, 
the sinner was absolved. Who does not remember the 
beautiful story of St. John, the Apostle of Love, and 
the young captain of banditti? His penance, robber 
and murderer as he was, could not have lasted more 
than a few weeks, since, by the time that the apostle's 

* Vide Orsi. De Cap. Crira. abs., sec. 1, cap, 7, 2, ; sec. 4 ; Dig. 5. 
Ibid., cap. 2, 4. 



248 



SEVERITY AKD RIGORISM. 



visitation was over, before he had left the place, the 
penitent, as we are told, " was restored to the Church." 
And this lenity lasted long after apostolic times. In 
the canons called apostolical we meet with none of 
the terrible canons and the astounding penances 
whieh startle us in later collections. Seldom is any 
fixed time assigned for penance; once mention is made 
of a. fast of a few weeks. As soon as the bishop saw 
that the sinner was contrite, he was absolved.! It was 
not till the middle of the third century that any 
direct penitential canons were passed. Before the time 
of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus there were no accurate 
divisions of public penitents. Previous to that time the 
very longest penance on record lasted hardly three 
years. It was not till the long peace between the per- 
secutions of Severus and Decius had brought vast 
multitudes into her pale, that the Church, as though 
astonished at the growing corruption, roused herself to 
try to strangle sin by severit}^.| The taunts of Novatian 
heretics certainly helped to sting some particular 
churches into greater rigour, just as Jansenism imparted 
a certain stately Puritanism even to the orthodox Galli- 

* Francolinus, Vet, Eccl. sev. vindicata, lib. 1, disp. 9; Apostolical 
Constitutions, lib. 2, cap. 19. 

f Orsi even argues, from St. Paul's Epistles to the Corinthians, 
that mcechi were not put to public penance in apostolic times at all 
until they had demonstrated their impenitence by perseverance in sin. 
De Cap. Crim. abs., sec. i, cap, 1, 5. For the date of the Epistles 
■ide Conybeare and Howson, vol. ii, 560, 

\ Even Morinus, whose tendencies are rigorist, has, lib. iv, 21, 7, the 
following remarkable words : Referring to several places in his book, 
he says, " Probatur prenas criminibus impositas ante Novatum breves 
adtnodum fuisse, et nonnunquam sceleratissimis hominibus pacem et 
communionem certis de causis nulla imposita exteriore pcenitentia 
statim esse redditam. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



249 



can Church. It was after that time that the Holy 
Communion began to be deferred till long after absolu- 
tion, while in earlier times the absolved penitent went 
straight to the altar to receive the Blessed Sacrament.* 
By St. Basil's times the Church attained the maximum 
of severity, since in the canons which go by his name, 
we find express mention of many sins for which no 
provision had been made in the ancient penitential laws 
of earlier times. In one place we are expressly told 
that he lays a penance of fifteen years upon a sin 
punished formerly by a penance of one. This severity 
was a forlorn and desperate experiment, which did not 
last long. Sin only increased under the pressure of the 
canons. The overwhelming tide of wickedness still 
rolled on, and rose higher and higher till it became a 
very deluge. By the time that half of the two hundred 
thousand inhabitants of Antiochf were Christians the 
public penances were few and far between. The tone of 
St. Chrysostom's homilies is utterly inconsistent with the 
view which imagination has conjured up of the multi- 
tude of penitents beating their breasts at the door of 
the church. There is little said of public penance to 
those numerous Christians whom his indignant eloquence 
pictures as feasting their prurient curiosity on the foul 
spectacles of the theatre. They are even exhorted to 
receive the Holy Communion in sermons which might 
be preached in a Lent retreat at Notre Dame or St. 
Roch to the fine ladies of modern Paris J By the time 
that he arrived at his patriarchal throne the ancient dis- 
cipline had disappeared. It could only have been 
enforced on a willing people, and the lords of the 

* Morinus, ibid. 

t Milman's note to Gibbon, c. 15. X In Matt. Horn. 7, 



250 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



Hippodrome at Constantinople, or the maids of honour 
of Eudoxia, could not with any probability of success 
have been exhorted to public penance. The saint's own 
character was utterlv averse to rigour. He was firm as 
a rock against an impious court, but his kind heart could 
not stand a sinner's tears. It is curious to find an 
accusation of laxity amongst the charges preferred 
against him. A sudden zeal for ecclesiastical rigour 
seized upon the imperial court, and the patriarch is 
accused of receivinp; sinners and absolving them as 
often as they chose to come to him.* The very office 
of public penitentiary had been abolished, as we know, 
under Nectarius, St. Chrysostom's predecessor. From 
that time the discipline of the Greek Church had com- 
pletely changed. Public penance for secret sins no 
longer existed.! Absolution was pronounced at the 
very beginning of public penance, and Holy Commu- 
nion deferred to the end. As for the African Church, 
which, with the Greek, were the two rigid churches of 
antiquity, it perished with St. Augustine. The barba- 
rian trumpets were sounding around the walls when the 
old saint was dying, and Genseric and his Vandals put 
an end to its discipline and almost to its existence. 

I have spoken of some churches as rigid, for we 
must never forget that, in the history of the early 
Church, the category of place is to be taken into con- 
sideration as well as that of time.J I have never said 

* Baronius, ann. 403. f Morinus, 6, 22, 24. 

% The differences between churches founded by apostles, especially 
the Church of Rome and other churches, has been noticed by Orsi, de 
Capitalium criminum absolutione. See also Morinus, lib. 9, 20. 
Some have concluded from Tertullian that at one time sinners of some 
kinds were nowhere allowed absolution at all, even on their deathbeds. 
Both these eminent writers have completely refuted this opinion. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



251 



that there was no rigorism at all in the first five cen- 
turies, in certain places and in certain times. The same 
mistake which has confounded times and centuries, has 
also caused many writers to overlook difference of 
place. Many seem to forget that canons of a Council 
of Adge or Elliberis prove nothing but the practice of 
the Church in some obscure provincial town. Laws of 
diocesan synods are often cited with as much pomp as 
those of ecumenical councils; and the writers seem 
even to forget that they are no more binding on a 
modern cleric than we in Westminster are affected by 
an order emanating from a bishop in France or Italy. 
Considering the general tendency to neglect this prin- 
ciple, it is unfortunate for us that so many of the best 
writers of the early Church are African. Tertullian 
and Minucius Felix, Arnobius and Lactantius, not to 
speak of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, in whom the 
saint tempered the African, all had Punic blood in 
their veins. Nowhere in the Roman world did Chris- 
tianity make such rapid and complete progress as in 
Africa. At the time of the Vandal invasion there 
were five hundred episcopal towns, scattered over the 
six fair provinces which occupied the shores of the 
Mediterranean, from the Pillars of Hercules to where 
the continent slopes down towards Egypt. Carthage 
had churches when Rome was in the catacombs; and 
the cry which was raised by the mob, on the first break- 
ing out of persecution, " Let the Christians be deprived 
of the churchyards," proves that the Church possessed 
already a recognized property. It was at a late period 
that Christian blood began to be shed in Africa, and the 
absence of danger, though favourable to the spread of 
the faith, had a peculiar effect on the spirit of the 



252 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



Christians. There was ever a strange mixture of 
civilization and savao-eness in the African cross of the 
Roman blood. Carthage was so renowned for the edu- 
cation and the eloquence of her children that she was 
called the city of lawyers ; yet such were the vices of 
those men of subtle thought and fluent tongue, that 
one who knew them well could only say that their 
passions were fiery and deep as iEtna itself. It was 
out of these volcanic elements that the Church was to 
make Christians, and to the last it must be allowed 
that the African Christian had something of the savage- 
ness of his origin. There was sometimes wild revelry 
even in feasts held over the tombs of martyrs. Who 
does not recognise the African in the unscrupulous 
intellect and the ferocious rigorism of Tertullian? It 
is not wonderful that the discipline of the African 
Church partakes of the truculency of the African 
character. How graphically* St. Cyprian describes the 
furious indignation of the faithful against the apostate 
and the unclean, and the difficulty which, with all his 
influence and eloquence, he found in persuading them 
to allow the wretched sinners to be admitted to begin 
their long penance at all. He speaks of some bishopsf 
who held that those guilty of a certain class of sins 
should be excluded even from the hope of absolution 
to their dying day. He implies,! m one place, that sins 
were punished with public penance, which in other 
churches would be absolved as speedily, and in the same 
way as in the modern Church. Nay, he himself was so 
infected with African maxims§ as to refuse absolution 
to the dying who had put off confession to the time of 



* Ep.54. f E P- 51. % Ep. 11. 



§ Ep.51. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



253 



their death-bed. No clearer proof could be required of 
the rigour of the African Church, and I might point to 
other churches for isolated examples of the same spirit, 
as, for instance, to the canons of Neocsesarea and Elli- 
beris, and to some decrees of Gallican bishops. 

But there was one Church which never wavered in 
its consistent advocacy of gentleness towards sinners. 
While the greatest intellects in Christendom were* at 
sea upon the question of the best way of opposing sin, 
while Africa and the East were rivalling each other in 
their severity, the Divine instinct of the See of St. Peter 
saw what was to be done. The Vicar of Christ had his 
eyes ever fixed on the kindness of Jesus, and was kind 
to sinners. What a strange identity there is between 
the conduct of the See of Rome in all ages ! But little 
is known about those silent Popes of the early Church. 
They make no speeches; they write no books; some 
say they did not even preach ; but they knew how to 
make decrees to govern Christendom, and to die. While 
others argued, they saw; while an eloquent Cyprian 
holds wooden views about the Sacraments, and argues 
plausibly enough that none but a Christian can baptize, 
an obscure Pope Stephen knows better the mind of 
Christ, sees that the Sacrament, which is the indispensa- 
ble gate of salvation, must be made as wide as possible, 
and proclaims that a heretic may validly baptize ; he con- 
demns his great antagonist, then goes down into the cata- 
combs, and is tracked there by the soldiers as he is going 
to say Mass, and is martyred. They were kings of men, 
those early Popes, over the dates and the very names of 
whom critics fight. All honour be to them as they lie 
in some unknown corner of those under-ground galleries, 
because they not only fought the Csesars, but fearlessly 



254 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



governed Christendom, and, above all, exorcised from 
Christianity the spirit of rigorism. Out of the depths 
of Phrygia there comes a frantic asceticism, most un- 
christian and worthy of the land which produced of old 
the worship of Cybele. It spreads all over the world; 
it seizes upon the greatest intellect Christianity had yet 
had or would have to boast of for many a long year ; 
the mighty, reckless spirit of Tertullian. Humanly 
speaking, the doctrine that the Church had no power to 
absolve certain sins must soon have become the general 
belief of the Christian world. When, lo ! there appeared, 
to the scandal of Africa and the rage of Tertullian, a 
decree peremptory as any that issued from the Vatican 
in the time of Innocent III. It declared that the Church 
had the power and the will to absolve the most unclean 
sinners. The sneers of the frantic Tertullian have had 
but one result ; they have revealed to us, by the most 
unexceptionable of witnesses, the fact that the successor 
of St. Peter assumed the title of Bishop of Bishops, and 
the doctrine of the Church on the power of the keys. 

There lay, however, within the walls of Rome itself, 
a more dangerous enemy than Tertullian. Among the 
forty-six presbyters, who, under Pope Callistus, ruled 
the fifty thousand Christians of the huge city, was one 
conspicuous for his brilliant talents, his great learning, 
and his world-wide influence with the Gentile Christians. 
He seems to have considered that his peculiar vocation 
was the conversion of the heathen. Hippolytus had 
gained an influence which might rival that of the spiritual 
ruler of the imperial city itself. All parts and all nations 
of the world were represented there ; and when, in the 
eloquent peroration to a book which circumstances have 
rendered famous, he addresses himself to " Greeks and 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



255 



barbarians, Chaldeans and Assyrians, Egyptians and 
Libyans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts, and all the in- 
habitants of Europe, Asia, and Libya," he might have 
found living specimens of these various races in the vast 
stream of human beings which continually flowed 
through the streets of Rome. Hippolytus was a man 
whose virtues and whose defects were the very opposite 
to those of Tertullian. The rugged and mighty intellect 
of the Carthaginian held the same relation to the subtle 
and polished Greek as does a gigantic block of native 
granite to a graceful marble statue. While the rude 
African delighted chiefly in bringing out the opposition 
between Christianity and pagan philosophy, the genius 
of Hippolytus led him to attempt to win over his Grecian 
countrymen by metaphysical speculations on the Word 
of God which Plato would not have disowned. He was 
betrayed into language which has marked him out as 
one of the precursors of Arianism.* To his astonish- 
ment the eloquent and learned Christian philosopher 
found himself condemned by the See of St. Peter. The 
metaphysical logos of Hippolytus was calmly confronted 

* It is a remarkable instance of Father Newman's profound saga- 
city that, in his wonderfully learned notes to St. Athanasius, he has 
accurately described beforehand the opinions of Hippolytus, as they 
may now undoubtedly be gathered from the then undiscovered Refu- 
tation ; vide Translation of St. Athanasius, p. 272. The authority of 
Hippolytus is now destroyed by the fact that he held a doctrine which 
was Arianism in germ, and that he was condemned by the Holy See. 
He became a saint only through his martyrdom. There must be some 
truth underneath the story of Prudentius that he was a Novatian he- 
retic, and repented previously to his martyrdom. Historians had long 
been puzzled by the statement of Prudentius, when a book unex- 
pectedly appears containing rigorist views similar to those afterwards 
held by the Novatians. Surely the coincidence is too remarkable to 
be fortuitous. 



256 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



with the old creed of the Church, " I acknowledge 
one God,* Jesus Christ, and none beside Him, that was 
born and suffered." An ineffectual attempt to shake the 
fidelity of the Roman people to the Pope increased the 
discomfiture of the condemned philosopher, and he has 
left his bitter disappointment on record in a few dis- 
graceful pages of his Refutation of Heresies, which bear 
all the marks of a Greek libel. Yet they are deeply in- 
teresting to us, as revealing through the storm of abuse 
and obloquy the old majestic features of the Holy See. 

Yes, O Hippolytus, whoever you may be, were you 
even Cardinal Bishop of Portus, which it appears you 
were not, it is an old habit of the successor of St. Peter 
to identify his communion with the Catholic Church,f 
and he will continue to do so many a long year after 
you and Pope Callistus are dead and gone. A runaway 
slave he may or may not have been, but he is now Sove- 
reign Pontiff, and as such he has two gifts, which the 
Platonic mind has not, a power of judging between true 
doctrine and false, and a boundless love of vulgar sin- 
ners, redeemed by the blood of Christ. Alas ! that you, 
O Hippolytus, should have connected your honoured 
name with heresy, and have forced us to class you with 
a frantic Tertullian. Happier in this that you expiated 
all this sin by a glorious martyrdom. We know that 
before the wild horses tore you limb from limb, you 
repented of your schism and your harshness to souls; 
but it took all the blood which you shed then to wipe 
off that fatal stain !J 

* Refutation of Heresies, 285. 

f Refutation of Heresies, 291. 

J I do not forget Dr. Dbllinger's admirable book on the subject, to 
which I am much indebted. Nevertheless, in the exceeding uncer- 
tainty of the matter, I prefer following the legend. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



257 



Meanwhile we thank Hippolytus for this new insight 
into the character of Rome. Every fresh manuscript 
which is discovered only brings out the identity of the 
principles of the Holy See. Whether the Pope has been 
a banker's slave in the Piscina Publica in the third cen- 
tury, or is an Italian nobleman in the nineteenth, you 
find him assuming that he is the head of the Catholic 
Church, pronouncing doctrinal decisions, condemning 
intellectualism, claiming a separate jurisdiction from the 
civil power over marriages, and what is most to our pur- 
pose, maintaining gentleness of discipline towards sin- 
ners. It is most instructive to find an African Tertullian 
and a Greek Hippolytus echoing the same invectives 
against the Holv See. There must be some truth in the 
libel, and it is this. The successor of St. Peter has ever 
been the champion of clemency towards sinners and the 
opponent of rigorism. While in numberless places there 
were rising up on every side rigorous opinions, for- 
malizing themselves at this time in a wild Montanism, 
and a little later in a decorous Novatianism, the Holy 
See set itself like a rock to stem the torrent. We have 
to thank Hippolytus for a fresh link in the chain of this 
tradition of mercy, when he tells us that Callistus averred 
that he " remitted sins to all men," a practice appa- 
rently contradictory to his own. The same pope also 
uttered propositions offensive to the philosophical mind ;* 
" Yea, and he said that the parable of the cockle was 
spoken of by our Lord for this purpose; leave the cockle 
to grow with the wheat, that is, sinners in the Church. 
Yea, and he said that the ark of Noe was like the Church, 
for that there were dogs and wolves and crows in it, and 

* Refutation, 290. 

S 



258 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



clean and unclean beasts. After this fashion, according 
to him, things ought to be in the Church." There can 
be no clearer proof that the powerful and eloquent Hip- 
polytus was a rigorist, and was condemned as such by 
the Holy See. 

Such are the voices which come to us out of the 
darkness of the first centuries, at the time when the 
Holy See could not only assert but exercise unre- 
strained its rightful authority. One great evil of the 
times of persecution is, that it renders difficult the 
communication between separate churches and between 
the Church and her Head ; and even in the fourth cen- 
tury, after Christianity became the established religion 
of the empire, the long struggle with Arianism, during 
which so many bishops were in exile, and their thrones 
occupied by usurpers, could not but throw into confu- 
sion the relations between the several parts of Christen- 
dom. This was precisely the time, as we have seen, 
when the discipline, especially of the Eastern Church, 
was most severe. At the beginning of the fifth century, 
however, there sat upon the throne of St. Peter a suc- 
cession of Pontiffs such as have never been surpassed in 
the annals of Christianity. In these momentous sixty 
years, from the accession of Innocent I to the death of 
St. Leo, during which Rome was threatened by Rhada- 
gaisus and Attila, and sacked by Alaric and Genseric, 
it is wonderful to see the Popes resuming their old 
functions of mitigating the perpetual tendency to 
rigorism which existed in various churches. While 
Goth, Vandal, and Hun were thundering at the gates of 
Rome, Innocent, Celestine, and Leo are issuing decrees 
to all parts of Christendom to enforce upon bishops 
kindness to sinners. Three heresies, Pelagianism, Nes- 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



259 



torianism, and Eutychianism rose, and had to; be put 
down, tumultuous councils to be managed, and emperors 
to be directed, yet the Popes still found time to lay 
down laws for the administration of the Sacraments, 
which are the foundation of the present discipline of 
the Church. Whenever rigorism arose it was met by a 
decree of the Sovereign Pontiff.* Innocent, in a letter 
to Exuperius of Toulouse, orders the Holy Communion 
to be given to inveterate sinners who had put off the 
Sacrament of Penance to their death-bed. Celestine is 
told that Gallican bishops refused absolution to death- 
bed penitents. " We are filled with horror," he says, 
" that any one should be found so impious as to despair 
of the mercy of God. What is this but to add death to 
the dying, and to kill his soul by your cruelty in pre- 
venting his absolution? as though God was not ever 
most ready to help the sinner." Some Italian bishops 
compelled sinners to proclaim their sins aloud in a public 
penance. St. Leo peremptorily forbids it as being " an 
act of presumption, contrary to Apostolic practice," and 
lays down as a general principle that secret confession 
to a priest is sufficient of itself. Absolution is to be 
given to the dying, even if they are insensible when the 
priest arrives, and have not been to confession for a 
long time before. In ancient times public penitents 
were in certain cases separated from their wives, com- 
pelled to give up business, and to leave the army.f St. 
Leo virtually abrogates this ancient legislation, by 
declaring all this to be a matter not of precept but of 
counsel. Certainly if rigorism can be charged upon 
any churches in the first five centuries, it is not the 
fault of the Church of Rome. 

* Vide Appendix H. f Ep. ad Rusticum. Morinus, lib. 5, 24. 



260 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



Nothing can be clearer than the fact that the early 
Church adapted her discipline to the various wants of 
time and place; did she equally vary her rules at any 
given time to the capacity of individual souls? I have 
never denied that the Church of the five first centuries 
was far more severe than the Church of this day; but 
was she rigorous? What is the meaning of the startling 
canons of the councils and penitential books of the day ? 
Where, for instance, a sinner presented himself at the 
feet of a priest, and confessed a sin for which was 
assigned a penance of three or even thirty years, was he 
in every case compelled to undergo the whole penance, 
to wait to the end of that time for absolution and the 
Holy Communion, without distinction of the length of 
the time that the habit had been upon him, of the 
number of times that it had been committed, or of age 
and sex? Was the same penance inflicted upon the 
man who had fallen once as on the old sinner whose 
habit had lasted for years? Was no account taken of 
the amount of temptations and of resistance, of the dis- 
position of the individual soul, its contrition, its capa- 
cities for penance, or its weakness? The notion is 
incredible. Such a system of legislation, such a wooden 
tariff of sins could never be put in practice. 

Let us endeavour to put aside imagination, and to 
gain an accurate view of what can be known about the 
penitential system of the early Church. First, let us 
remember that by far the greater part of mortal sins 
were absolved precisely in the same way as now with- 
out public penance.* During the three first centuries 

* See Morinus, lib. v, 2 ; lib. ix, 14. For discipline of Rome vide 
Francolinus, Vet. Eccl. vind. lib. i, disp. 8. The three sins were 
idolatry, homicide, and mcechia. It may be doubted what is the pre- 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 261 

• 

to three sorts of sins alone was absolution refused till 
such a penance had been performed. After these in 
some churches some other grave sins were added to the 
list; in the Church of Rome, the number was never 
increased. Thus, even in the severest times, at Rome 
at least, all sins whatsoever of thought and all sins of 
action, except three, were pardoned without exclusion 
from the Holy Communion. In all these cases, there- 
fore, there was no opportunity for rigorism. 

Secondly, were secret sinners, even of these three 
kinds, ever punished with public penance,* and there- 
fore excluded for a long time from Holy Communion ? 
This is one of the most difficult questions of Christian 
antiquity, and I do not pretend to resolve it ; but one 
thing seems to me proved, that is, that such sinners were 
by no means always compelled to do public penance. 
In other words, the penitential laws of the Church were 
not universal or inexorable, but depended in practice 
upon the judgment formed by the priest on the disposi- 
tions of the penitent. Let us attempt to obtain a view 
of this part of the discipline of the Church of the first 
five centuries. First, then, in the earliest times of the 
Church, the question whether secret sinners of this 
description were to be compelled to do public penance 
by the refusal of absolution would hardly occur at all. 
If there be one thing more than another which strikes 
us in these infant Christian communities, it is their 
touchingly childlike simplicity. I gaze with wonder 

cise extent of the sins indicated by the last word. That it did not 
mean all sins of that nature is certain. Before St. Basil's time even 
a lapsed religious was only punished with a year's penance. Ad Am- 
phil, can. 18. 

* Vide Appendix J. 



262 SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 

• 

and awe at their supernatural gifts, at the superabun- 
dant overflow of mystical life poured out on the renewed 
earth by the Holy Spirit, the handmaids prophesying 
and the young men seeing visions. But what strikes 
me most in all that remains of them is the strong spirit 
of charity which reigns among them. Each one of 
these Christian communities in Jerusalem and Antioch, 
Corinth and Rome, was like one family of brothers and 
sisters in the Blood of Jesus. In the midst of the rot- 
tenness of the pagan world, beneath the shade of the 
Acropolis of the old Greek cities, close by the temple 
of Aphrodite Melanis at Corinth, or the groves of 
Daphne, or the Serapium of Alexandria, amidst all the 
accumulated devilry of thousands of years, there arose 
little communities, which spread around them a perfume 
of antique purity and patriarchal simplicity. Each 
church looked like an expansion of the family as the 
Church of Corinth sprung out of the house of Stepha- 
nas. What a picture, for instance, is there in the simple 
words of St. Ignatius to his brother bishop: " Let not 
the widows be neglected; for our Lord's sake be thou 
their guardian, and let nothing be done without thy will, 
neither do thou anything without the will of God. Let 
there be frequent meetings. Seek out every man by 
name. Despise not slaves, be they men or women. Tell 
my sisters, that they live in the Lord, and that they be 
content with their husband's love ; in like manner tell 
my brethren in the name of Jesus Christ to love their 
wives, as the Lord the Church. If any one is able to 
remain in purity in honour of the Body of Jesus, let 
him not grow proud ; if he boast, he is lost. If it lead 
him to seek a renown apart from the bishop, he is dead 
already. It is right when youths and maidens marry 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



263 



that their union should be contracted with the bishop's 
consent, that the marriage may be in the Lord. Let 
all things be done for the honour of God. Look to the 
bishop that God may also look upon you." The bishop 
here evidently takes the place of the loving father of 
one great family. All religious acts seem to have been 
done in common as much as possible. There was but 
one Mass, that of the bishop, at which all the priests com- 
municated with him, as is done even now at an ordina- 
tion. The bishop was ordinarily the only confessor and 
director.* In such a state of things there would, pro- 
bably be no compulsion required to induce a sinner to 
make a public penance, which at that time would pro- 
bably last but a few weeks. Brothers and sisters do not 
mind being reproved before each other; the whole 
spiritual family wept over and with the offender, and 
rejoiced at his absolution, when his brief penance was 
over. The question of the separation of the two fora 
would probably hardly suggest itself to the faithful, since 
a case would at once, with the easy consent of the inte- 
rested person, pass from one to the other.f It would 
hardly occur to them to ask whether absolution was to 
be denied if the sinner refused to do penance in public, 
since like docile children they would readily allow their 
spiritual father to impose upon them what penance he 
pleased, especially when we remember that, though the 

* For instance, vide canon of Carthage (Morinus, p. 297,) Presbyter 
inconsulto Episcopo non reconciliabit Psenitentera nisi absentia Episcopi 
et necessitate cogente. It is worth while to notice how early the doc- 
trine of jurisdiction occurs in the Church. 

f In this sense alone can I accept the statement of Morinus, that 
originally the two fora were identical in the Church, a statement, how- 
ever, which he himself qualifies in the same chapter so much as to 
neutralize it, lib. 1, cap. 10. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



imposition of such a penance was a ceremony which 
took place in the church, the particular sin was always 
concealed.* 

The difficulty, however, would be sure to arise when 
the spread of Christianity brought along with it more 
frequent sin, greater severity, and less childlike obe- 
dience. Then, indeed, it was impossible that sinners 
should always willingly accept public penance, and the 
question arose, whether they should be compelled to do 
such penance, without their own consent, for secret 
sins. It arose, it is true, far later than we should sup- 
pose, because the family feeling among Christians 
lasted far longer than we should be inclined to sup- 
pose.! We may, however, allow that there are many 
canons, especially of the fourth century, which, at 
least, are susceptible of being interpreted in the sense 
that secret sins of some kinds were, in some churches 
at least, publicly punished, and that without the con- 
sent of the sinner. The point on which I insist is, that 
in the sternest times, the rule that secret sinners might 
be compelled by the refusal of absolution to do public 
penance, assuming that it existed at all, was restricted 
by so many exceptions as to render it anything but 
universal. No public penance could be imposed on a 
married person without the consent of his or her con- 
sort; and, what is still more remarkable, such a penance 
was hardly, if ever, inflicted upon the young of either 
sex.| Most remarkable also is the reason assigned for 

* Vide Sozomen, quoted by Morinus, lib. ii, c. 9. 

t Vide a remarkable passage of Tertullian, I)e Pa?n. 10, 11. 

X Not only is this fact stated by Francolinus, Fsen. I, 3, but it is 
also narrated by Morinus, lib. v, 19, 24. He speaks of canons " quibus 
edicitur Psenitentiam conjugatis ex nmtuo tantum consensu esse 
imponendam,juvenibus vero aut difficile aut nullomodo imponendam." 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



265 



exempting youth from public penance, that is, on 
account of the frailty incident to their age. Rigorism 
would have drawn the very opposite conclusions. There 
is even a curious tradition, that no one was allowed to do 
public penance before the age of forty.*' When these 
two large classes, the young and, in many cases, the 
married, are exempted from the canons which enjoin 
public penance, an immense drawback must be made 
from the picture which imagination has drawn of the 
vast number of public penitents in the Church, even 
in the severest times and places. Furthermore, it 
is an acknowledged! fact that, from the fourth to the 
eighth century, public penitents quitted the exercise of 
their trades or professions. The imperial minister was 
no more seen at the palace, the merchant disappeared 
from the exchange, the soldier quitted the army. It is 
perfectly incredible that all secret sinners should have 
been submitted, against their will, to such a discipline 
as that. Soldiers, for instance, are not the most moral 
of mankind. Can we believe that all who led bad lives 
were compelled to do public penance, and to quit 
the ranks ? Evidently either the canons apply only to 
notorious sinners, or they were infinitely modified in 
practice. 

Still more remarkable is the fact, that it was a uni- 
versal principle that no cleric was punished by public 
penance4 Even those who had been guilty of very 

* Labb., torn. 2, 630. 

f Morinus, lib. 5, c. 21. He allows in that chapter that ssepissime 
Patres coacti sunt disciplinam relaxare. Evidently St. Leo relaxed 
the canons for the purpose of saving the existence of public penance, 
c. 24. 

+ &ia.KOvoQ [isra rf)v Siatcoviav ivopvtvaag airo$\r}Tbg fisv Tr)g Sia- 
Koviag ta-ai tig 8e tqv tujv XalKwv tottov airu)oQi\g Trig icoivojv'iag ovk 



266 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



grievous sins were allowed to communicate immediately 
after absolution. From this fact 1 draw two conclu- 
sions, which seem to me evident: first, that the canons 
acknowledged the wide principle, that sins materially 
the same were variously punished, according to the 
various conditions of the sinner; and, secondly, that 
the reception of the Blessed Sacrament by sinners, very 
soon after the sin, was not foreign to the views of the 
early Church. Thus, not even the strictest canons 
are indiscriminate ; they do not involve in one univer- 
sal sentence all sinners, without distinction of indivi- 
dual conditions. Even in Carthage, the most rigorous 
of all churches, a distinction is recognised between 
secret and public sins.* Altogether, it seems to me 
impossible to reconcile the various authorities on the 
subject without supposing that, in the actual adminis- 
tration of the severest laws, it was left to the bishop or 
the priest to determine whether, in the particular in- 
stance, it would not be best for the soul of the sinner 
to temper and to moderate them. 

It is evident, then, that " Sacramenta propter 
homines" was not forgotten by the Church in her dis- 
cipline with respect to the publicity of penance. But it 
extended also to every branch of her penitential system. 
It seems as though, after the Church, in her severest 
mood, had made the strictest decrees, she at once grew 
compassionate, when it became necessary to apply them 
to the individual sinners. Cite me any portion of her 

elpxOriasTai, St. Basil, Ep. 188. That Koivcovia means the Holy Eu- 
charist is plain from a comparison with the very remarkable canon, 79, 
among the reputed Nicene canons. Labb., torn, ii, 979 ; Morinus, 
lib. 9, 14. 

* Canon 32. Labbe, torn, ii, 885. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



267 



discipline, and I will undertake to show you how she 
modified it when it came to actual practice. Nothing 
astonishes us so much in the ancient Church as the pas- 
sages of the Fathers which seem to assert that the Sacra- 
ment of Penance was allowed only once to sinners. I 
fully believe that this means public penance as contrasted 
with secret, which was reiterated no matter how often. 
But, be this as it may, there are instances on record of 
the frequent reception of relapsed sinners, of a class to 
which you would have supposed that the Church would 
have been peculiarly severe. Over and over again did 
Cerdon the heretic deceive the Church by a false repen- 
tance, yet the excommunicated man was received with 
open arms whenever he returned. When we remember 
how often heresy involved sins of another kind,* this 
fact goes far to neutralize the startling passages to which 
we allude. Marcion had been excommunicated for a sin 
of a heinous nature ; he was re-aclmitted to the bosom of 
the Church, and then fell into heresy, yet he was again 
received notwithstanding his relapse. Either, then, no 
such rule existed in the early Church,! or else she was, 
according to St. Alphonso's maxim, a lion in public, a 
lamb in the confessional. 

Take, again, what startles us as much as anything — 

* As in the case of the women mentioned by St. Irenseus. Lib. i, 
c. 9. 

f The chief authority for the opinion is the Pastor of Hermas. It 
seems to me that that book does not represent the discipline of the 
Church, but that which the author desires to introduce, and which 
could not be introduced without the authority of private revelations 
We might as well insert St. Gertrude's visions in the Corpus Juris as. 
adduce the Pastor as a proof of the legislation of the Church. There 
is a curious instance of penance being allowed more than once in the 
seventy-ninth canon of Nicasa, quoted above. 



268 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM, 



the length of time during which, according to the peni- 
tential canons, heinous sinners were kept without abso- 
lution, and consequently without communion. In- 
numerable are the instances in which we see the verifica- 
tion of the assertion of Morinus, that in cases in which, 
according to the ordinary law of the Church, absolution 
would have been deferred, " sometimes it, as well as 
communion, were given at once, even to most wicked 
men." It was an understood principle in early times that 
martyrs and confessors could grant indulgences to public 
penitents, that is, by the application of their own suffer- 
ings could procure absolution to sinners who had not ful- 
filled their term of penance. Even the sneers of Ter- 
tullian cannot spoil the beautiful picture on which our 
imagination loves to dwell of sinners crowding to the 
prisons for mitigation of their penance, while the mar- 
tyrs rejoiced in their sufferings, not only because 
they shed their blood for Jesus, but because they 
could restore the Holy Communion to the longing souls 
of their erring brethren. f How touching is the letter 
written by Celerius, a Roman Christian, to Lucian, a 
Carthaginian sufferer, waiting for death in prison. 
The Roman entreats him to restore to the altar Nu- 
meria and Candida, two Christians, for whose weak 
woman's nature the persecution had been too strong. 
Even without the martyr's prayers, the Church often 
remitted the penalty to sinners, and restored them to 
the Blessed Sacrament long before their time. Who 
does not remember the clemency of Pope Cornelius to 
the fallen ? It had all been settled in solemn council ; 
during the vacancy of the Holy See the Roman clergy 



t Orsi, sec. 3, cap. 35. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



269 



had written to St. Cyprian to recommend severity, so 
many and so scandalous had been the apostasies during 
the terrible persecutions. Carthage had seen assembled 
all the bishops of Africa, in no way loth to exercise 
their virtuous indignation on the fallen sinners. Fully 
did the apostates deserve the severe sentence passed 
upon them, and the Carthaginian clergy had the satis- 
faction of knowing that the Roman clergy had resolved 
on the same stringent measures. Hardly, however, 
was St. Cornelius ^seated on the throne* of St. Peter, 
when Africa was scandalized by the news that, in his 
compassion, he had given absolution and Holy Com- 
munion to all the apostates. St. Cyprian attempts to 
soothe his angry colleagues by saying that the fact was 
untrue. Yet he cannot deny that a great part of the 
fallen had already been allowed to communicate. Cor- 
nelius had granted absolution to Trophimus, a noto- 
rious apostate priest, and to a large number with him. 
Rome was ever steadfast to her traditions of mercy. 
Even in Africa the canons could not be carried out. 
St. Cyprian writes to reprove Victor, a priest, for hav- 
ing granted absolution to a sinner after a very brief 
penance; and St. Cyprian himself received back the 
penitent apostates in a short time on the approach of 
persecution. 

But we have more direct proof of the fact that the 
laws of the Church, with respect to the length of 
penance, were modified according to the dispositions of 
the individual. Whether you consult the Hagiology, or 
the Councils, or the Fathers of the Church of the first 
five centuries, you find proofs of the shortening of the 



* E P . 51. 



270 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



duration of penance, in spite of the penitential canons. 
The intimate life of the Church is often better known 
from the lives of the saints than from more stately 
histories. Who that has read the lives of the Desert 
Saints does not remember St. Mary of Egypt? She 
had broken the laws of God, and all possible canons of 
the Church. After scandalizing Alexandria, she trans- 
ferred to the Holy City, at the holiest time, the abomi- 
nation of her presence. The Blessed Virgin converts 
her, by a stroke of grace, in the church of the Holy 
Sepulchre. Heart-broken, she walks all night, and 
reaches the valley of the Jordan in the morning. 
There and then, in the church on the banks of the 
stream, she receives at once the Holy Communion. In 
one night of penance the sinful creature had expiated 
years of sin. According to the canons, many a long 
year must have passed before her absolution. Take, 
again, the stories told in the lives of the Saints of the 
Desert, of sinners going to the Holy Communion. 
Some had been guilty of one of these three sins, for 
which, universally, according to law, a long public 
penance was to be done. Yet when, after* a brief time 
of secret repentance, they received the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, their bodies were seen luminous and resplendent 
as an angel. Most significant are these facts. The 
lives of the Desert Saints are the popular devotional 
reading of the fourth and fifth centuries; and such 
stories prove that there was nothing startling to the 
minds of Christians in the fact of a sinner going at 
once, on his conversion, to the Holy Communion. 
If we turn back to the legislation of the Church, 



* Rosweide, pp. 524, 648. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



271 



surely all the touching exhortations in the apostolical 
constitutions, by which a bishop is conjured to be mer- 
ciful to sinners, imply that the length of their penance 
was in his hands- Even St. Basil writes to Amphilo- 
chius, that " he to whom God in His mercy has given 
the power of binding and loosing, will not be con- 
demned if he mercifully diminishes the time of the 
penances imposed, when the penitent is fervent." And 
long before St. Basil, an authority even greater than 
he, in her first ecumenical council, the Church, just 
recovering from persecution, takes advantage of the 
first settled peace to decree mercy to sinners. She 
orders absolution always to be given to the dying.* 
She expressly leaves to the bishop the modification of 
penitential laws, especially with respect to the length of 
penance, as also do the Councils of Ancyra and Lao- 
dicea.f 

When, however, we turn from the decrees of coun- 
cils to the writings of the Fathers, the case seems plainer 
still. Legislation is necessarily dry, colourless, and ab- 
rupt: the question is, how was the law put in practice? 
We have seen how much was left to the discretion of 
the minister of the Sacrament, how he might modify 
and temper the law not only as to the publicity, but as 
to the duration of this penance. It is, therefore, most 
important to make out what was the spirit of the 
Fathers in the administration of the Sacrament of 
Penance. Did they act as though they thought that 
the time of penance depended not on the law but on 
the dispositions of the penitent? Did they modify the 
law according to the merits of the individual? Did 

* Canon 12. Labbe, torn, ii, 674. 

t Canon 5, torn, ii, 515. Canon 2, torn, ii, 563. 



272 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



they even acknowledge the principle that the burden 
imposed upon the sinner is to be suited to his strength, 
and that his frailty is to be taken into consideration ? 
Here again imagination has played tricks with us. We 
gaze with awe upon those great saints through the 
lapse of ages ; we remember how they withstood bar- 
barian kings and civilized emperors, and we think that 
they must have been stern. We are caught by the 
grave and solemn music of their Greek and Latin, and 
we see them presiding over councils, throned and mi- 
tred, with stole and pallium. They appear before us 
lofty, resplendent, even terrible in their virginal ma- 
jesty, like the mountains in their eternal snow, high 
above us, immovable and cold, flashing back from their 
foreheads the pure light of heaven. We forget their 
love of souls.* Here they become at once human and 
saint-like. This is the key to the heart of the early 
church, and the token of its union with the Heart of 
Jesus. We praise the undaunted courage of St. Am- 
brose in imposing penance on the guilty emperor ; we 
forget his compassion in admitting him to the Holy 
Communion, after a short penance of eight months, 
though, according to the canons, he should have been 
excommunicated for at least twenty years. How touch- 
ing is it to hear a great St. Chrysostom avow that 
he fled from the Episcopate, for fear of not being able 
to deal with sinners as kindly as he should ! His whole 
book on the priesthood is the cry of terror of a loving 
heart, trembling lest it should not love sufficiently to 
please Jesus. Yet we know that his enemies accused 
him of laxity towards sinners. How well he under- 

* A beautiful instance of this love of souls is to be found at the end 
of St. Gregory Nazianzen's thirty-ninth oration. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



273 



stood the effeminate beings with whom he had to deal, 
and how fully he was prepared to condescend to their 
weakness!* He is talking of the difficulty of bringing 
sinners to repentance. " The law gives us no power," 
he says, in significant words, " to compel them to do 
penance, and if it did, we could not use it. What, 
then, is a man to do? If you are too gentle with one 
who wants a severe amputation, you leave half the 
wound unhealed ; but if you unsparingly use the knife, 
the pain drives him to despair, he tears away the ban- 
dages, flings himself headlong into all evil, casts away 
all restraint, and breaks in pieces the salutary yoke." 
Nevertheless, the saint boldly accepts the alternative of 
mildness. " I could tell you of many," he says, " who 
have utterly perished in desperate sins, because a 
penance was put upon them in proportion to their mis- 
deeds. Punishment ought not to be exacted precisely 
also according to the measure of a man's sins; you 
must judge of the dispositions of the sinner, lest in 
trying to patch up a rent you make the tear worse, and 
in hastening to raise the fallen, you cast him down 
more violently. Where you have to do with frail and 
effeminate persons, brought up in all the delicacies of 
the world, yea, and proud of their birth and power, 
you may convert them from their sins by little and 
little, if not perfectly, yet so as to free them partly 
from the evils under which they suffer, whilst, if you 
attempt to correct them violently, you deprive them of 
that little amelioration." Could he declare in plainer 
words how much he hated rigorism, and how distinctly 
he realized the principle, that the weakness of the 

* De Sacerdotio, ii, c. 3, 4. 

T 



274 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



sinner should be taken into account in the imposition of 
the penance? In one of his homilies, when exhorting 
his hearers to frequent communion, he says, that " a 
preparation of five days is enough even for a man 
burdened with a very heavy load of sin." It is a 
favourite maxim of his, that " duration of time is not 
necessary for penance." " Think not," he says, Ci of 
the shortness of the time, but of the goodness of God." 
Take also an ancient writer often quoted under the 
name of St. Jerome. " When the canons fix the mea- 
sure of time for doing penance, they do not mean 
clearly to lay down how each sin is to be corrected, but 
they leave it to the discretion of the priest, for God 
does not look so much to the length of time as to the 
depth of grief, nor to the abstinence from food so much 
as to the mortification of sin." 

But the most certain sound comes from the chair of 
St. Peter. Innocent declares that the priest has power 
of dismissing the penitent as soon as he judges that 
his satisfaction is sufficient.* But there is one voice 
above all, clear and unmistakeable ; it is that before 
which the hordes of Huns rolled back from the North 
of Italy. " The time of penance," writes St. Leof to a 
bishop, " is to be settled by your judgment, according 
as you see the devotion with which sinners turn to 
God." " Penance," he says, " is not to be judged of 
by time, but by the compunction of the heart." Nay, 
he is careful not to make the sacrament odious; he 
legislates for the weakness of sinners, and gives it as a 
reason for severely forbidding all public enumeration 
of secret sins." For this reason he lays down as a 

* Ep. 1, Labbe, torn, iii, 1029. f Ep. 129, Ad Nicetam. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



275 



fundamental axiom, that for secret sins confession to 
God and to a priest is sufficient.* Practically speaking, 
then, we can gain a sufficiently clear insight into the 
discipline of the early Church. In spite of the specu- 
lative difficulties which surround us in the interpreta- 
tion of the canons, we can tell what would be the 
reception which a young man who had committed 
great sins would meet with from his confessor, in the 
fourth or fifth centuries. He would* not be forced to 
do public penance. The length of his private penance 
would depend a great deal on the character of the 
priest to whom he applied. If he made his confession 
to St. Basil, a considerable time would probably elapse 
before he received the Holy Communion. If a young 
Milanese threw himself at the feet of St. Ambrose,! 
the saint would have shed floods of tears, as though he 
himself were the sinner, and would have so moved him 
to compunction that he would soon have been fit to be 
absolved. If he had gone to St. Chrysostom, he would 
have said, " My child, do penance for your sins; come 
to me in a few days and you shall be absolved, and 
receive your Lord. "J But whether he was in Cesarea 
or Constantinople, his confessor would not judge him 
by rigid rules, but would absolve him sooner or later, 
according to the measure of his contrition. 

Such was the Church's period of severity, and such 
was its result. It lasted from about the middle of the 
third century to the end of the fourth, or the first half 
of the fifth. Even while it lasted it never degenerated 
into rigorism ; it was infinitely modified by the love of 

* Ep. 136. 

f Vide Life by Paulinus. 

X Vide Orat. 6, Ad S. Philogoniura. 



276 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



souls. In the East it finished with Nectarius; in the 
West, where it had never been so severe, its existence 
was prolonged, but it was penetrated and neutralized 
by the merciful maxims of the Popes, and public 
penance assumed more and more the appearance and 
the rarity of a religious profession.* 

It was tried once more under very different auspices. 
What had been given up as impracticable, when the 
Church had to deal with the courtiers of Eudoxia, was 
attempted by a sect on those of Louis XIV. 

It cannot be denied that if an uncompromising seve- 
rity is the best method of winning sinners to God, the 
French of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
were fit subjects for its exercise. All over Europe, 
wherever it had penetrated, the Reformation had left 
behind it a terrible dissoluteness of manners. A series 
of unprincipled reigns from Francis I to Henry III 
had greatly injured the national character, and Henry 
IV brought a soldier's licence as well a soldier's virtues 
to the throne. The religion and the piety of Louis 
XIII were not sufficiently amiable or vigorous to 
remedy the evil. The memoirs of the time reveal the 
growing corruption of the aristocracy of France. The 
popularity of many of the heroines of that memorable 
time was evidently not injured by their want of re- 

* It is very curious to see how this was the case even from the time 
of Pope Siricius. For instance, a runaway penitent is punished like 
an apostate monk ; and, what is still more strange, no married person 
can enter the class of penitents unless the innocent consort enters it 
with him, precisely as is the case with married persons taking reli- 
gious vows. That provisions such as these should be applied to the 
generality of the faithful is perfectly incredible, especially if we reflect 
that the age of primitive fervour was long past, and that vice was, un- 
fortunately, by no means rare. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



277 



spectability. Vice was fast ceasing to be infamous. 
But there were deeper depths to be reached on our 
way to the regency and the Pare aux Cerfs. I turn 
with horror even from the first brilliant years of Louis 
XIV. For many a previous reign the vices of the 
court had been gnawing into the heart of France ; but it 
was not then the all-absorbing vortex which it after- 
wards became, when all France lay at the feet of her 
absolute, young, and brilliant king. We are accus- 
tomed to look upon the court of Charles II as the very 
acme of all that is bad ; but it was rivalled, if not sur- 
passed, by that of his more glorious cousin. It does 
not diminish our horror when we recollect that Louis 
was the most Christian king. Paschal Communion only 
renders the subsequent triumph of returning sin more 
odious. I cannot thoroughly enjoy Bossuet's splendid 
recitative when I remember who is in the royal chapel 
in the train of the injured queen, and how ineffectual 
is his eloquence. But we will not dwell on the disho- 
nour of the fleurs-de-lis. 

How was the Church to grapple with this enormous 
evil? By renewing the canons of the ancient Church, 
and by excommunicating Louis XIV ? Alas ! we are 
not in the middle ages. The world, since Philip the 
Fair, has been doing its best to neutralize the authority 
of the Church ; it is too late for it to turn round upon 
her and reproach her for not using it. Was the Holy 
See to lay France under an interdict? But interdicts 
can only be laid on a thoroughly faithful people. They 
consist in using the public opinion of Christendom 
against a wicked ruler — what if public opinion itself is 
corrupt? The Parisian world, which could bear in the 
comedies of Moliere one long satire on the sanctity of 



278 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



marriage would hardly have been a fit subject for the 
experiment. It is all very well to expect some modern 
Ambrose to thrust the new Theodosius out of Notre 
Dame. Gallicanism, however, is not prolific of Am- 
broses, and would Theodosius have obeyed? You 
might look long for the Saint of Milan amongst the 
members of those amphibious assemblies of the clergy, 
adorned by the character and eloquence of Bossuet, 
really managed by the clever and scandalous De Harlay, 
And after all, the Church might pause and ask herself 
whether severity was best for the sinner's soul? It was 
tried by the Archbishop of Sens, an ally of the Jan- 
senists, and by no means an Ambrose. When the king 
was at Fontainbleau, he renewed the ancient censures 
of the Church against sinners. The king quietly 
retired to Versailles, beyond the bounds of the prelate's 
diocese. On the other hand his conversion was at last 
effected by gentle means. 

It needed no Jansenism to teach the Church how to 
deal with the difficult problem. There lay a fund of faith 
in the heart of the French nation, which has carried 
it through many fiery trials, and preserved the Church 
in spite of the Revolution. All that was good in the 
French nobility was Christian and Catholic; Protes- 
tantism or Jansenism could only spoil without deeply 
affecting them. They were very different from the 
degenerate men and the effeminate races with which 
the early Church had to deal. There was something 
really great in the Condes and Turennes, and in the 
noble soldiers who afterwards fought at Steinkirk and 
Landen, something even heroic in the way in which 
they rallied round the sinking throne of Louis, and 
died at Blenheim and at Ramillies. All this natural 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



279 



goodness might have been and often was turned on the 
side of God. Very much has been done amongst them 
from that time until now by seizing upon the ^-good 
points of their nature, and employing their restless ac- 
tivity in the service of God. Such was the secret found 
by St. Vincent of Paul. The fine ladies of that wicked 
luxurious Paris were induced by him to sympathize with 
the frightful miseries of the poor, and healed the wounds 
of their own souls, while their hands tended the suffer- 
ing bodies of their fellow Christians. Duchesses 
d'Aiguillon and Countesses of Joigny climbed up into 
the miserable garrets of the poor, and were kept close 
to God amidst the vices of the court. Many a young 
French nobleman shed his blood for Christendom, and 
perished fighting in Candia against the Turks. Others, 
like a Duke of Beaufort, " king of the rabble" in times 
of the Fronde, put their brilliant courage to better ac- 
count in an expedition against Algiers, and succeeded 
in liberating hundreds of Christian slaves. Olier helped 
on St. Vincent's work. He formed confraternities of 
gentlemen and ladies who assisted him in the reforma- 
tion of his wide parish of St. Sulpice. He induced 
numbers to join in the foundation of Villemarie or 
Montreal in Canada, to form a bulwark for the rising 
Christianity of North America against the Iroquois, 
and for the conversion of the savages. Such was the 
plan of the Church. It never repelled the amiable, 
clever, and really noble Frenchman by an assumption of 
rigour. It employed them in good works, and thus 
kept them close to the sacraments. If you do not al- 
low them to wander far from God, some day even the 
bad ones will return. There were often striking con- 
versions in the worst of days. Henrietta of England, 



280 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



she who inspired Bossuet with accents of genuine grief, 
which even yet move our hearts, died sweetly kissing 
her crucifix. Anne of Gonzaga was wonderfully 
brought back to God in the midst of her reckless life. 
Who has not heard of the long penance of Sister 
Louise de la Misericorde, once Duchess de la Valliere? 
Many a soul, stricken, wounded, and suffering, amidst 
the splendour of Versailles, was brought back to God by 
the merciful theology of the Church. 

Upon all this great work came the reign of Jansenism, 
chilling, dry, withering, like a perpetual east wind. It 
was the same kind of movement as the reaction of 
Puritanism in England against the dissoluteness of the 
Cavaliers; and, like its English counterpart, it fell in 
with a ready-made political party to protect and to help 
it on. The ancient simplicity of French manners, 
spoiled first by the Renaissance, and then by the license 
of the civil wars, still lingered in many a provincial 
chateau, amongst the smaller nobility, but, above all, had 
taken refuge among the legal families, the nearest ap- 
proach to a great middle class in France. It was out of 
the unnatural union of this latter party with discon- 
tented nobles, that sprung the Fronde, and of the 
debris and detritus of the Fronde came the strength of 
the Jansenist party. Hence its motley character, hence 
the monstrous union of Rigorism and De Retz, and the 
strange juxtaposition of the perfumes of Madame de 
Sable and the dirt of the Mere Angelique. 

Such was the disreputable origin of modern rigorism ; 
let us now examine its characteristics, and contrast 
them with those of the early Church. It was very early 
in the history of Jansenism that its doctrines with re- 
spect to the sacraments made their appearance. The 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



281 



propositions taken out of the Augustinusby Cornet, for 
the purpose of denouncing them to the Holy See, were 
originally seven, and among the two, withdrawn in 
order to reduce the examination within the smallest 
compass possible, was one which asserted that public 
penance was essential to the sacrament, and that secret 
confession was invalid.* It is not hard to discover 
the parentage of the opinion. The prodigal outpouring 
of the precious Blood in the sacraments, the instanta- 
neous and infinitely reiterated pardon given in absolution ; 
above all, the universal love of Jesus for sinners implied 
in His unconstrained union of Himself with them in 
the Holy Communion, were all utterly incompatible 
with a doctrine which laid down as its fundamental 
principle that Christ did not die for all men, but only 
for the elect. Again, all doctrines which teach any 
kind of Calvinistic election necessarily require some 
mark to distinguish the elect from the reprobate, and 
some method of distinguishing the converted from those 
still out of favour with God. The enthusiasm of a 
Methodist conversion was suited neither to the friend 

o 

genius of Jansenism, nor compatible with the possibility 
of remaining within the bosom of the Church. A long 
suspension from Communion under a Jansenist director, 
became thus the shibboleth of the sect, the mark of 
thorough conversion to God. 

These doctrines might long have slumbered in the 
Augustinus if they had not been transmuted into French 
by Antoine Arnauld, then a young doctor of the Sor- 
bonne. In 1643, the year of the death of Richelieu, 
by order of St. Cyran, appeared u La Frequente Com- 

* Vide Dumas' Histoire des Five Propositions, p. 6. Faillon, Vie 
de M. Olier, p. 184, torn. ii. 



282 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



munion." The book made the fortune of Jansenism. 
Up to that time its character for severe virtue had been 
confined to the nuns of Port Royal and a few devotees, 
directed by St. Cyran. It now flew far and wide over 
France. It drew from some distant provinces of 
France, where the civilization of the capital had never 
penetrated, some seigneurs and country gentlemen, who 
wished to repent of lives spent in wild debauchery. A 
few old soldiers, one or two bad priests happily con- 
verted, some barristers of repute, and some physicians 
in full practice, gave up the world, settled down as 
hermits in the valley of Port Royal, and edified the 
world by their earnestness and penance. These men 
were the penitential capital of Jansenism. But what 
was the effect of the book upon the world? 

St. Francis of Sales had lived and died so lately, and 
his influence was too living for Arnauld to dare openly 
to avow the purpose which we have seen expressed by 
Jansenius. The blundering honesty of the Belgian 
could not be imitated in France. The principles taught 
by St. Philip in Rome had come across the Alps, 
through Piedmont and Savoy, and had electrified France. 
From that little mountain district in the Chablais, and 
from the borders of the dark lake of Annecy, their 
came a spirit of love which to this day impregnates the 
devotion of the French people. Frequent communion 
was a first principle which Arnauld dared not openly 
attack. He says that he does not want to prevent the 
good from receiving their Lord often ; his only aim is 
to establish the principle, that a sinner should, when- 
ever he committed a mortal sin, be suspended from 
communion for at least a few months, " in order 
afterwards to communicate frequently." He posi- 



SEVEKITY AND RIGORISM. 



283 



tively disclaims the desire either to curtail commu- 
nions, or to bring back the ancient discipline of the 
early Church. 

O Antoine Arnauld, man of inexorable logic, let it 
suffice you to have had the honour of measuring swords 
with Malebranche, but do not dabble in theology ! 
Your talents are essentially pugnacious and forensic, 
and, like many controversialists, you care more for 
making out your point than for the truth ! If you do 
not want to re-establish the discipline of the ancient 
Church, how is it that, wherever they dare, Jansenists 
do make the attempt? Why, in the parish of St. 
Mery in Paris, are there men and women standing out- 
side the church on a Sunday during the Mass because 
the priest has excommunicated them? Why, to the 
ridicule of all France, has the Archbishop of Sens pro- 
mulgated the extinct laws of obsolete discipline? Why 
is the diocese of Aleth in an uproar because Bishop 
Pavilion, with head and heart as hard as the rocks of 
its volcanic mountains, has restored public penance, and 
has tried the experiment on several wild seigneurs, who, 
it must be confessed, richly deserved it ? O Antoine ! 
are you inconsistent or are you untruthful? As for 
myself, I have too great a respect for your talents, and 
I know your long career too well, not to believe in your 
want of veracity rather than logic* 

But he is gone to his account. Let us analyze his 
book, and we shall have a complete picture of modern 
rigorism, and be able to judge how, in every respect, it 
is diametrically opposed to the principles of the early 
Church. 

First, his system is inflexible. It could not be other- 

* Vide Appendix K, On Jansenist insincerity. 



284 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



wise. The two motive principles, the one of which is 
the origin, the other the check upon the flexibility of 
the confessional, were utterly absent from his mind. 
The love of souls was physically impossible in the heart 
of one who held that Jesus did not die for all. The 
love of Rome would have been a strange inconsistency 
in an extreme Gallican, who looked upon each bishop 
as a St. Peter on his own particular rock. We are not, 
therefore, surprised if, in terms of indignant eloquence, 
he lays it down that the discipline of the Church is 
invariable and inexorable * 

Secondly, he never consistently looks upon the 
sacraments as remedies for human frailty. In con- 
formity with this principle, he lays down rules which 
are the destruction of frequent communion. He first 
declares that no one is to receive the Blessed Sacrament 
who has not the purest love of God, without any 
admixture. All are to be driven from the altar whose 
hearts are not entirely purified from the very images of 
their former sins, who are not perfectly united to God 
alone, and entirely irreproachable. When we remem- 
ber that, according to Arnauld, this purest love of God 
is the necessary disposition)" for communion, we may 
well ask who then is to communicate? No wonder his 
contemporaries called the book, " lTnfrequente Com- 
munion." 

With respect to sinners, he lays it down as a rule 
that no sinner should receive the Holy Communion 
till the habit of sin is destroyed. He considers it 

* He says, indeed, in one place, that as a wise physician the Church 
may give to her sick children the medicine which she knows they will 
not refuse ; but Petavius has shown his gross inconsistency. 

f Freq. Com. i, 5, 6. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



285 



essential to the Sacrament of Penance that the penance 
should be accomplished before absolution can be re- 
ceived. This is founded as well upon the essential 
order of things in the Spirit of God as upon the laws 
of God's justice. Nay, the principal object of the 
Sacrament of Penance is not pardon to the sinner, but 
the satisfaction of God's justice. Every single mortal 
sin thus involves a separation from communion which 
he himself recommends should last several months.* 
Who does not see that with such principles frequent 
communion becomes impossible ? If the purest love of 
God is a necessary condition for a good communion; if 
each separate mortal sin involves a long penance and a 
long privation of the Blessed Sacrament, the altars of 
the Church must inevitably remain solitary and aban- 
doned. For once Arnauld tells the truth when he says 
that few indeed would be allowed to communicate, if 
all were rejected from the altar who ought to be 
rejected according to the spirit of the Church. f 

It was necessary to dwell upon Arnauld's principles, 
because they are in fact the principles of all rigorism. 
I have drawn out the difference between Jansenism and 
the early Church, because there is no doubt that a cer- 
tain prejudice is created in favour of rigorism by what 
lies on the surface of that part of the early Church 
history which is best known. It is certain that 
Arnauld's book made a great impression even upon 
those of his contemporaries who were not of his party. 
In vain did Petavius demolish the learning of Arnauld. 
His old-world French and cumbrous logic were no 
match for his opponent's nervous style and indignant 

* Fieq. Com. Preface, p. 15. 
t Freq. Communion, i, 23. 



286 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



assumption of injured innocence. There remain for a 
long time marks of the influence both of the Provin- 
cials and of the Frequente Communion in some of the 
best writers of the French Church. I hear echoes of 
it in the thunderbolts hurled from the talons of the 
eagle of Meaux. There is a want of unction and 
tenderness, a sustained and dignified unbending severity 
in the sermons of the period, which unpleasantly smacks 
of rigorism. The fact is, we are all ricmrists by 
nature. It is not necessary to be a Jansenist Predesti- 
narian to have a touch of the Pharisee in us. Nay, the 
very opposite doctrine, which pares down the conse- 
quences of the fall, exaggerates the strength of the 
will, and forgets the fickleness of fallen nature, is logi- 
cally just as rigorist as Jansenism. 

And the world, which is neither logical nor Jan- 
senist, salved its conscience by rigorist principles 
and laxity of action.* Young ladies slyly read " La 
Frequente," as it was called in Jansenist slang, because 
it came under the category of naughty books. Disso- 
lute young men eagerly took up the doctrine, that 
suspension from communion was the best of penances, 
more meritorious than fasting or alms^ivin^f It is 
instructive to remember the occasion on which Ar- 
nauld's book was written. The Princess de Guemene 
refused to go to a ball on the day of her communion, 
under the auspices of a Jansenist director.! Another 
lady, thinking this strange, applied to her own director, 
who wrote her a letter to prove that the ball and the 
communion were not incompatible. Out of the corre- 

* Cousin, Vie de la Marquise de Sable, p. 59. 
t Freq. Com. ii, 23. 

% This is Ste. Beuve's account of the matter. 



SEVERITY AND RIGORISM. 



287 



spondence which resulted, sprung Arnauld's book. 
Not otherwise noteworthy to us, this quarrel between 
two ladies of the court of Anne of Austria two centuries 
ago, if it did not reveal the fact that the princess was 
allowed by her director to receive the Holy Commu- 
nion. Oh, Madame de Guemene, of the two it would 
have been better for you to go to the ball, and not to 
approach the altar ! You are of those who strain at 
gnats and swallow camels. From what De Retz tells 
us of you, if you had knelt in St. Alphonso's confes- 
sional, you would have gone away unabsolved. Rigor- 
ism ever leads to laxity from its want of principle. 

Once more, rigorism never dies. If it were not for 
the kindred Pharisaism of our nature, Jansenism would 
long have been consigned to the huge Dondaniel of 
oblivion. So much nonsense could not still be written 
about it, if did not flatter some part of our original 
sin. I have known men, excellent men too, in France, 
who did not go to communion even at Easter, on ac- 
count of the principles of dread which had been instilled 
into them in their youth. As for us priests, Heaven 
defend us from rigorism. Let us remember that the 
unerrring logic of history has led us to this conclusion. 
The true spirit which should guide us in the distribu- 
tion of the Holy Communion is, first of all, an ardent 
love of souls, and the continued recollection of the infi- 
nite compassion of Jesus for their frailty. The contra- 
dictory to rigorism is flexibility in the application of 
laws to the wants of individual souls, the whole checked 
and controlled by obedience to Rome. Without it, the 
administration of the sacraments of God's love would 
degenerate into a sort of Presbyterian cutty-stool. 



288 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



CHAPTEE III. 

THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 

We have now finished the historical part of our work. 
We have wandered painfully through systems of philo- 
sophy and wide tracts of history. Some of us may 
remember many years ago, how our boyish imagination 
was deeply impressed with the account of Spaniards 
groping their way through the tangled mazes of a West 
Indian forest, with a host of Caribs pursuing them. 
Such seems to be the journey of a man who has once 
got into the tangled thickets of theory. It is little 
enough that he can see of the light of the sun, for the 
tall giants of the forest, in their attempt to reach 
heaven with their tops, have shut it out. The very 
luxuriance of all this earthly growth has taken captive 
the beautiful light as in a net, so that it can hardly 
struggle down through the wilderness of their broad 
leaves, and the thick undergrowth of wild vines and 
flowery creepers which clasp them round. It all looks 
very beautiful, but a man, if he wants to make his way 
to the free air beyond, must laboriously carve his road 
foot by foot through the matted mass of hopeless 
jungle. Nay, what light there is only shows black 
pools, and quivering swamps, where a poor soul may 
drown amid spotted snakes and loathsome caymans. 
Earth quakes beneath our feet, and heaven is hid. 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 289 



Fresh obstacles to truth pullulate out of the activity of 
an intellect which creates its own difficulties the farther 
we go. Better, perhaps, never to have entangled our- 
selves at all in such a labyrinth. Yet it was all for the 
glory of the Blessed Sacrament. We in England can 
hardly be dispensed from entering that forest to hunt 
for souls. There is many a noble creature of God 
wandering amidst the old swamps and rank labyrinths 
of human error; and we must go thither to hunt for 
them. With the risk of running my metaphor to death, 
I cannot help remembering how beautiful was Corpus 
Chris ti in Paraguay, with the tropical flowers breathing 
out their odorous lives, and the green birds fluttering, 
and lithe leopards playing around the procession ; and, 
better than all, Christian Indians singing sweet hymns, 
and bowing the knee before Jesus in the Sacrament of 
His love. Ah ! it is worth while to go down into the 
most dismal swamp, and to thread the paths of the most 
tangled wood to save one soul. 

However, we breathe more freely now that we have 
done. All this work has not been worthless for our- 
selves. We have even a clearer idea of the blessed 
truth than we had before. We have laid down princi- 
ples which will help us now. Above all, I hope that 
our long historical research has given us a vivid view 
of the practice of the Church and a truthful picture of 
rigorism. We have now done with both theory and his- 
tory. We are going to apply practically the principles 
which we have gained. I shall not be so solicitous about 
order and method as hitherto. I shall only treat in an 
unscientific way a few prominent questions with respect 
to Holy Communion. 

There is one question which seems to me the turning- 

u 



290 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



point of the whole doctrine of spiritual writers about 
Holy Communion : Are habitual imperfections an ob- 
stacle to frequent communion? Let us examine this 
question together; it will throw great light upon the 
whole subject.* 

In order that there may be no mistake, I premise two 
things. Frequent communion is a relative term, the 
meaning of which depends upon the custom of the age. 
In the middle ages once a month, in the time of St. 
Francis of Sales once a week would be considered fre- 
quent. In our time, according to the general estima- 
tion, a Christian who communicated once a week would 
not be considered a frequent communicant. I am not, 
therefore, asking whether a person who is ordinarily ex- 
empt from mortal sin, but has still some affection for 
venial sin, may communicate every week. That I take 
for granted. I assume, as certain, that all ordinarily 
good Christians may communicate once a week.f The 
questions which we are considering, then, may be stated 
thus: Is a person who is really imperfect to be pre- 
vented from communicating more than once a week ? 

Secondly, I mean really imperfect. I am not talking 
of scruples, that is, of acts which the doer looks upon 
as sins, but which are not really so. I mean downright 

* It is important never to forget the condemnation of the following 
proposition by Alexander VIII. " Consuetudo moderna quoad admi- 
nistrationem Sacramenti Poenitentia?, etiamsi earn plurimorum homi- 
num sustentet auctoritas et multi temporis diuturnitas confirmet nihi- 
lominus ab Ecclesia non habetur pro usu sed abusu." 

f " Never have I regarded weekly communion as frequent," says 
St. Alphonso ; " that person alone who communicates several times a 
week is considered to be a frequent communicant." It is very im- 
portant to remember this maxim of the saint. It is evident that many 
more good Christians might communicate weekly if they were not 
withheld by traditionary rigorism. 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



291 



habitual, venial sin. Nor do I address myself to the 
scrupulous, that is, to persons who dispense themselves 
from fighting against their most real sins by occupying 
themselves with imaginary ones. These persons are not 
to be argued -with at all, for they are incapable of rea- 
son. Miserable caricatures of the spiritual life, abnor- 
mal products of the religious world as monsters are of 
the natural, they are to be treated like half-witted 
creatures, kindly, of course, yet without any appeal to 
their common sense which does not exist. I have no- 
thing to do with them just now, but with another class, 
who are often treated as though they were scrupulous, 
but who are not really so ; those who are painfully con- 
scious of imperfections which are by no means unreal, 
which are not to be despised, but to be strenuously 
fought against. 

Let us imagine, then, a person of this description thus 
addressing his or her confessor. To make matters 
clearer, we will suppose it to be one of a class often con- 
sidered to be ordinarily incapable of frequent commu- 
nion, a married lady, a wife and a mother. This, there- 
fore, is what she says:— 

I know that I wish to love God ; I am as certain of 
it as I can be of anything whatsoever. I feel a great 
drawing towards Him ; I have a special devotion to the 
Blessed Sacrament, and a desire for the Holy Commu- 
nion. I feel an attraction for prayer. I can spend 
some time with pleasure before the tabernacle. At the 
same time I cannot persuade myself that I am fit to 
communicate often. I have no saintly aspirations. I 
love my husband and children intensely, and I am 
happy in their love. At the same time, I am distinctly 
conscious of numberless imperfections. I feel within my- 



292 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 

self continual movements of pride and sensitiveness, irri- 
tability and resentment. I am easily scandalized, and I 
form harsh and hasty judgments. I am slothful and 
effeminate, fastidious and hard to please. In a word, 
there is nothing extraordinary about me ; I am better, it 
may be, than some, because I have no temptation to great 
sins ; but it would be absurd to say that I am getting 
the better of my imperfections, or that I do all that I 
possibly can to overcome them. I struggle against them, 
and I wish with all my heart to be better, but I still re- 
main the same. Do you mean to tell me that I am fit 
to go often to communion? In vain you call me in- 
consistent, on the ground that on my own principles I 
am not worthy to communicate even as often as I do. 
After all, a person who receives the Holy Communion 
twice a week ought to be better than one who commu- 
nicates once a month. I know what the Blessed Sacra- 
ment is ; I cannot approach Him without fear. Would 
you have me not fear God? Others may make up 
their conscience to communicate often, but I cannot. 

Now, I will begin by allowing that there is much 
truth in what is here said, and that such feelings 
cannot be simply dismissed or despised ; and I will try 
first to separate the truth from the error. 

Do I not wish you to fear God? Heaven forbid that 
you should not. Who can help fearing Him? The only 
difficulty is to restrain this terror within due bounds, and 
not to fall down crushed and overwhelmed at the very 
thought of God. I for one have no sympathy with 
optimism. Where are we to find shelter from the eye 
of God? Surely, least of all, in a good conscience. 
There was a time when some of us were full of hope, 
when all the treasures of the Church lay at our feet, 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 293 

and we dreamed of being saints, and of doing great 
things for God. But now, when we look at the sad 
reality, when, after years of feeble, impotent struggling, 
we find self as unsubdued as ever, and the same cata- 
logue of meanness and unfaithfulness in God's service 
meets us at the close of every day, there is much 
danger, lest a simple, desolate recklessness should take 
the place of our aspirations after perfection. No 
wonder if the more real a soul is, the more it rises 
above what I cannot help calling the unreality of some 
devout persons, the more also it shrinks from such a 
frequency of communion as would be likely to dege- 
nerate into a portion of the mere mechanism of spiri- 
tuality. 

You see I have granted you a great deal, perhaps 
more than you asked. Yet you are wrong if the prac- 
tical conclusion which you draw from all this is that 
your communions should be few and far between. In 
the first place, there is much which is wrong in this 
fretful petulance. All this savageness with self, is 
a violent outburst of disappointed nature. Nay, I 
strongly suspect there is a good deal of rash judgment 
of your neighbours. I allow that some devout persons 
may be tiresome and narrow-minded, that there is much 
that is unreal in their worship of their directors, yet, 
for all that, I cannot help thinking that, with all their 
folly, they are more pleasing to God than you with 
your fitful pride. 

But, above all, in this, as in everything else, should 
not our only question be, what is God's will? He has 
left all these imperfections in us, because He desires to 
destroy all our idols; and, first of all, that great object 
of our idolatry, self. There is nothing like a good, 



294 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 

real imperfection to make ns know what we are. And 
when we are thoroughly convinced that, so far from 
being on the road to sanctity, we may think ourselves 
too happy to escape hell, then we are in the best pos- 
sible state to receive frequently the Holy Communion. 
God, in His infinite mercy, thinks that we do Him 
more honour by the blind and headlong confidence 
with which we, His guilty creatures, trust ourselves in 
such immediate union with Him, than we should do by 
our discontented and sullen reverence. 

Above all, what was the design of Jesus in the insti- 
tution of the Blessed Sacrament? Let us say it boldly, 
for we are authorized to do so by all that has gone 
before, the Holy Communion was meant not only for 
saints, but also for the imperfect. Let us not take the 
altitude of the Infinite by the standard of our own 
narrow hearts, but by the measures which He Himself 
has given us. The more I study the sacraments, and 
especially the Holy Eucharist, the more I am astounded 
by the manifestation which they contain of God's 
indulgence to sinners. They are a separate, a distinct 
revelation of His stupendous compassion for our 
miserable frailty. Not even the Passion could before- 
hand have told us how often God meant to pardon sin. 
The guilt of each separate mortal sin was so near 
infinity as to require expiation by Man-God. Not till 
we actually saw the unrestrained application of the 
sufferings of Jesus in the sacraments, could we be cer- 
tain of how far He intended its virtue, infinite in itself, 
to extend. Oh ! blessed Physician of the human race, 
in dying Thou didst not forget Thine own words, that 
Thou didst not come to heal " those that are in health, 
but those that are ill," 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



295 



Contemplate the sacraments, even the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, and see if, with all its Divinity, it is not meant 
for flesh and blood, and not for angels — for sinful flesh 
and blood, not only for saints. Nor does it even con- 
fine its effects to those diseases of human nature, which 
by their very greatness and their horror seem to 
acquire a dignity which renders them worthy of the 
efforts of a God to heal them. There are deep and 
dismal abysses of sin, into which we are not sur- 
prised to see God descend to snatch the soul from ruin, 
wild gusts of stormy passion, leaping, roaring waves 
of maddening guilt, which seethe and rage so fiercely 
around the drowning soul, that the blessed feet of 
Jesus alone can smooth them down. There are tempests 
which call for the voice of Jesus to say to them, Peace, 
be still. Oh ! Lord Jesus, there are times when we hear 
of sins which make us understand Thine agony, and 
which no tears can adequately weep but the red drops 
from Thy Sacred Heart. It seems worthy of Thee to 
soothe the moaning of despair, to bring back hope to 
the reckless, and innocence to those so shameful that 
they have lost all shame. But who could suppose that 
He could be so compassionate to the very littlenesses of 
our strangely ignoble nature ? Who could have thought 
beforehand that in His great sacrament, where, if I may 
dare to say so, He taxes to the uttermost the power of 
His Godhead and Manhood together, He should have 
legislated for its frequent reception by the imperfect? 

The fact that such was the design of our Lord, of 
course, cuts off by the very roots the objections of our 
imaginary lady, and it is worth while to dwell on it. 
She evidently belongs to the very numerous class of 
ordinary Christians. I cannot help thinking that the 



296 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



ordinary ways of God's grace are considerably misun- 
derstood , especially by converts. I wish to rehabilitate 
this very numerous middle class of Christians, who are 
not sinners, and will never be canonized saints. If we 
clearly understand that their communions may be fre- 
quent, and the grounds for that opinion, we shall also 
see what may be required of them, and that more may 
be got out of them for the glory of God than is 
thought. 

For this purpose let us examine with greater precision 
the principles which we have laid down, that habitual 
venial sins, if struggled against, need be no obstacle to 
the frequency of communion. Theologically it rests 
upon the opinion, that such habits of sin do not of 
themselves destroy any of the effects of the Holy Com- 
munion, though they may lessen them in degree. If 
our Blessed Lord has so constructed His adorable sacra- 
ment that its graces should flow into the souls even of 
the imperfect, clearly he intended it for them, and 
that they should receive Him as often as is possible. 
To state this, however, so broadly is not sufficient. 
There are many kinds of venial sin, and we must draw 
some distinctions which will make the matter clear. 

First, venial sins may be actually committed at the 
moment itself of communion. God forbid that it should 
be so, still it is conceivable. Even in this case, the 
whole of the effect of communion is not destroyed. 
The augmentation of habitual grace would still be in- 
fused into the soul, for this fruit of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment follows uniformly, even when there is no actual 
devotion, nay, when there is sin committed at the time. 
The sole indispensable condition for this effect is the 
absence of conscious mortal sin. None, however, of the 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 297 



actual and peculiar graces of the Blessed Sacrament 
follow in the case contemplated. " The effect of this 
Sacrament," says St. Thomas, " is not only the increase 
of habitual grace, but also a certain actual spiritual 
sweetness, and this is destroyed when a man communi- 
cates with distractions which amount to venial sin." 

So much for actual sins ; let us now consider habitual 
venial sins, in their effect on the fruits of the Blessed 
Sacrament. I am not going to relapse into metaphysics, 
nevertheless we must try to understand a little psycho- 
logy, that is, to study our own souls, in order to under- 
stand the subject. 

Who is there amongst us who has not observed a 
strange phenomenon in our mysterious, complicated 
nature? Quite independent of our wills, from fre- 
quently doing an action, good or bad, there grows within 
us a facility in doing it, and a strong inclination to it, 
which amounts to a positive difficulty in avoiding it. 
In each act of sin, the offender only dreams of satiating 
the passion of the moment, but all the while stealthily 
there grows upon him a new quality, which imbeds 
itself in his being, and gradually becomes a part of 
himself. It is a fatal proneness to the sin which remains 
after the fit of passion is over. The will has nothing to 
do with it; though it can, of course, avoid the indivi- 
dual act, yet, if the act is committed, the habit comes 
on without the will. It is a physical thing, like a para- 
site disease, fixing its roots in our flesh, living in our 
life, and poisoning our blood. That it is independent 
of the will is evident, because the propensity remains 
when the will would fain get rid of it, yet feels, 
in spite of itself, the terrible drawing to sin. Nay, so 
little is the will interested in its continuance, that the 



298 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



propensity is not even a sin till it is consented to ; its 
existence, even when it is a proneness to a mortal sin, is 
quite compatible with a state of grace. An habitual 
sinner is absolved and justified, though the habit, that 
is, the propension, remains strong within him. He has 
no desire that it should continue ; nay, he hates it, and 
he fights against it. Precisely the same is the case, of 
course, with a habit of venial sin. It may be in us 
against our will. We may detest the vanity, or the 
anger, or the sloth, or indulgence of our ease which is 
in us, and yet it remains in spite of us. We may even 
hate it, and yet yield to it, in individual acts, because 
the strength of it is not to be broken but by long efforts, 
and is independent of our will. In one word, affection 
to the habit is something quite different from the habit 
itself ; nay, the fact of our committing acts of that 
venial sin does not prove that we love the habit. 

Let us now apply this to the matter before us. If a 
habit of venial sin is no sin in itself, and if the guilt of 
the individual acts of it can be pardoned and done away 
by confession, or by contrition, or by taking holy water, 
or by hearing Mass, or in any of the many ways in 
which the Precious Blood can be applied to them, what 
possible irreverence is there in the frequent communion 
of a person in the state of mind such as we have de- 
scribed ? 

The principle here laid down is so important that, at 
the risk of being tedious, I will quote the words of an 
excellent, though little known, writer on the subject, 
Father Vaubert, of the Society of Jesus:* " The dis- 
positions of persons who commit venial sins are ex- 

* La Devotion a N. S. Jesus Christ dans l'Eucharistie. 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 299 



ceedingly different. The characteristics of those who 
have an affection to venial sin are these: their aim is 
simply to be saved, and nothing more ; under pretext 
that venial sins do not lead to damnation, they do not 
choose to deprive themselves of numberless little gratifi- 
cations, dear to human nature, but still, to some extent, 
offensive to God. They will not put themselves out in 
the slightest decree to watch over their hearts, nor 
make an effort to avoid the occasions of them. They 
commit them knowingly, coolly, and without scruple. 
They blind themselves about their little faults, and 
make a false conscience to themselves, in order to be at 
peace, under the notion that it is impossible for them to 
live in any other way than they do, and that they are 
quite safe, notwithstanding their mode of life. In a 
word, they look upon these sins as trifles, and on those 
who avoid them as extravagant and scrupulous. As 
for those, on the contrary, whose venial sins proceed 
from frailty, though their sins be very numerous, it does 
not follow that they have not a sincere desire to make 
progress in virtue, but that they are still imperfect and 
human ; their natural character is as yet unsubdued, and 
their feelings are uncontrolled. In a word, such is the 
strength of the habits which they contracted of detrac- 
tion, for instance, in small matters, or else of indulging 
their inordinate love of ease, in numberless cases, that 
they still fall into frequent sins, although they have 
sincerely set to work to purify their souls and to avoid 
proximate occasions. Their consent to these sins is not 
entire : they only commit them with a half deliberation, 
and they grieve deeply for them, sometimes even at the 
moment of committing them. Now, it seems to me that 
there would be a manifest injustice in treating these two 



300 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 

classes alike. It would show a want of discernment, if 
we were to apply to both equally the language of the 
fathers with respect to venial sin, in connection with the 
Blessed Sacrament. When St. Ambrose says that we 
must communicate every day, because we sin every day, 
he evidently does not advise daily communion to those 
who habitually and unscrupulously commit deliberate 
venial sins. On the other hand, it is equally plain that 
St. Bonaventure does not point to venial sins into which 
holy souls fall inadvertently, when he says that these 
sins make the soul cowardly, negligent, and unfit for 
Holy Communion, and even calls the communions of 
those who commit them " unworthy." If that were so, 
then those fathers would not only contradict other 
fathers, but themselves also. How else are you to re- 
concile St. Augustine saying, that there are sins which 
should not prevent us from communicating, with St. 
Augustine when he tells us, that venial sins are like a 
foul skin-disease, which makes our Spouse loathe us? 
How else will you harmonize St. Bonaventure with him- 
self ? He bids us in one place beware of approaching 
the altar with lukewarmness ; in another he says, " go 
to the Holy Communion, inspite of lukewarmness, if only 
you humble yourself ; humility will stand in the place of 
fervour." It seems to me, then, impossible to say uni- 
versally that venial sins are an obstacle to communion. 
It depends entirely on the nature of the sin, on the dis- 
positions of the sinner, and the effects caused in him by 
the Holy Communion. 

It is evident that the principle is here laid down, that 
some venial sins are not an obstacle to frequent com- 
munion. The same maxim is asserted also in a little 
work on the subject, which deserves to be better 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 301 

known.* " We must not confound together the dif- 
ferent kinds of venial sin. They are more or less deli- 
berate ; some have their roots in a certain malignity of 
heart ; others are committed on an instantaneous tempta- 
tion. Some are fully deliberate ; others proceed from 
negligence and frailty. Some are a cause of scandal 
to servants and relatives ; others are known but to God. 
The knowledge of all these different states may help a 
confessor to allow or put off communion." It is plain, 
then, that it would be untrue to say that all venial sin 
is incompatible with frequent communion, and unjust 
to class together sins which are so very different in 
degree of heinousness as these different kinds of venial 
sin. 

Now that we are armed with these principles, let us 
revert to our imaginary lady. I would answer thus : 
you have nothing to say for yourself. Your director 
is perfectly right to urge upon you frequent commu- 
nion. On the one hand, God has given yon an attrait 
for it. He has given you certain mystical tendencies. 
Do not be frightened at the word ; I only mean that 
He has bestowed upon you a love for prayer and a 
devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, which I have pre- 
supposed all along. On the other hand, frequent com- 
munion requires nothing extraordinary, nor even an 
approach to sanctity, which is something differing more 
in kind than in degree from ordinary goodness. It 
only implies a genuine, hearty wish to be better, and a 
real struggle with yourself to get rid of your habits of 
sin. 

Not only, however, is it proved negatively that 



* Principes de direction pour la Communion Frequente. 



302 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 

habitual venial sins are no obstacle to frequent commu- 
nion, because they do not impede its effects, but many 
of the effects of communion are positively intended for 
the destruction of venial sin. It would be sufficient 
for me to point to the declaration of the Council of 
Trent that the Blessed Sacrament destroys our daily 
sins as well as being an antidote to mortal sin. I ap- 
peal also to the Catechism of the Council, which tells 
us that it is undoubted that venial sins are remitted and 
pardoned by the Holy Eucharist, and this testimony is 
the more valuable because the Catechism implies that 
this is clearly the intention of the Sacrament, since it 
compares its actions to that of food refreshing the daily 
wants of the tissues of the body. May I not also appeal 
to experience? I will not insist even upon the opinion, 
which many hold, that the Holy Communion directly 
remits venial sin, like the Sacrament of Penance. I 
will only dwell on what is certain, and that is, that the 
Blessed Sacrament engenders in us, if not always sen- 
sible, at least actual charity, which burns up our incli- 
nation to venial sin. What is it that we all want but 
love? Why are we so lukewarm, so careless of offend- 
ing our good God, except that we have so little in us 
of unselfish, disinterested love? The habit of charity 
is not enough ; it must produce burning acts of love. 
The fountains of our heart must be broken up. and out 
of their depths must spring up the latent flame. It is 
even of importance to us to feel the love of Jesus within 
us. It is a great help when it is sensible to us as human 
love in its excess. This is precisely what the Blessed 
Sacrament often does. At the touch of Jesus the heart 
melts. The cold stone is broken, and there gush out 
of our heart spontaneous acts of love far beyond its 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 303 



natural powers. They are not elicited out of our pre- 
vious dispositions, which are mere passive conditions 
and not causes. Our souls are like a harp, over the 
strings of which the fingers of Jesus sweep, so that they 
discourse most eloquent music, heavenly music, which 
is not their own. It is this love which acts physically 
upon habits of venial sin and destroys them. 

Nor must I forget to notice that effect of the Holy 
Communion which is called in theology, the diminution 
of the fomes peccati, of that which forms " the fuel 
of sin" within us. What is the meaning of this ? Every 
one knows that resistance to venial sin is less in our 
power than the escape from mortal sin. It is very pos- 
sible, nay easy, for good Christians in ordinary cases to 
avoid all mortal sin. We know, on the contrary, that 
though we can prevent each individual act of venial 
sin, in the long run we are sure to succumb at last to 
some of the many temptations which beset us. The 
reason of this lies in our strange nature, half spirit and 
half flesh. We are psychical men, that is, though our 
immortal part is spirit, yet it is a soul animating a body, 
and it has gained animal propensities in the process. A 
supernatural state was necessary to keep this nature in 
order, but that was destroyed in the fall, and we have 
become what we are now, peevish, nervous, irritable, 
hysterical, passionate beings, and yet withal so lazy, so 
fond of ease, that we need a perpetual stimulus to make 
us persevere in anything. It is this animal tendency in 
us which is the chief source of venial sin, directly, 
because it affords matter for sin ; indirectly, because it 
unnerves and unmans us; it wastes our powers, and 
makes us impotent to bear the pain of being continually 
on the watch. Now, even on this animal nature, the 



304 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



Holy Communion does a wonderful work. Blessed 
anodyne, how many characters it has changed ! how 
many uncontrollable feelings it has laid to sleep ! Black 
thoughts fly away before its potent charm, like phantoms 
of the night before the dawn. Dislikes and antipathies 
which seemed and were too strong for us to overcome, 
are lulled to rest, and fancied injuries which seemed 
unpardonable now only provoke a smile. There are 
petty griefs of which we are ashamed, and yet which 
may wear our lives out by their constant gnawing. 
The Blessed Sacrament assuages and soothes them. 
There are failings of which we are perfectly conscious, 
on which conscientiousness and a stern sense of duty 
have alike tried their hands and failed ; they melt away 
before frequent communion. O blessed anodyne ! 
harsh souls become tender and weak souls brave under 
thy gentle influence. Restless hearts, come hither, and 
He will make you calm, for all these wonderful effects 
of the Holy Communion may be summed up in one 
word, peace. After the tremulous joy of the act of 
communion there comes a holy calm and a sweet repose. 
It comes from the presence of Christ ; it comes from 
proximity to God. We have within us the Godhead 
of Jesus. Our little hearts bear within them that Infi- 
nite sphere, which has neither shape, colour, nor line of 
boundary. The creature lies still in the arms of the 
Creator. No wonder the result is a passionless calm. 
Even when, as will often happen from various causes, 
the sensible effects of the Blessed Sacrament are im- 
peded at the moment of communion, yet the soul, which 
keeps up during the day that peculiar watchfulness 
over self, which St. Philip recommends so strongly to 
those who have communicated in the morning, will 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 305 

hardly fail to experience that blessed peace which is 
the normal effect of the visit of our Lord. 

Furthermore, let us not forget that much of this 
comes ex opere operato. This is not an unpractical 
truth, nor an empty word. No truth is barren, and no 
theological terms are empty. They mean, as we all 
know, that these effects are caused by the sacrament 
itself, and not by our dispositions, which are mere con- 
ditions. If this be true, what wonder if the effects are 
out of all proportion to the dispositions? If so, why 
are we scandalized when persons, in one sense, utterly 
unworthy of so great a favour, go frequently to com- 
munion? They go there to have effects wrought upon 
their souls which are supernatural, and utterly beyond 
their own powers and the forces of all possible nature. 
In this sense it is perfectly true to say that the sacra- 
ments act like charms. Let us beware lest, in exag- 
gerating the dispositions necessary for them, we 
deprive them of their divinity. They are meant to 
make the sinful good and the weak strong; what 
wonder if the weak and sinful approach them ! They 
were meant for the paralyzed, the fever-smitten, and 
the plague- stricken nature of man. As extreme unc- 
tion was meant for the dying, and absolution for dead 
souls, so the Blessed Sacrament is meant for the weak 
and imperfect. As well expel all mortal sin from 
your confessional as deprive those who have still 
habitual venial sins about them from Holy Communion. 

Furthermore, we must remember that all these are 
arguments for frequent communion as well as for Holy 
Communion in general. It is argued that imperfect 
souls were intended to receive the Holy Communion, 
because of the beneficial effect which it has in enabling 

x 



306 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



them to get rid of their venial sin. But if two com- 
munions are more beneficial than one, and give the 
soul greater power over habits of sin, why not com- 
municate twice rather than once? If there is no irre- 
verence to any one such communion, why should 
there be in two or three ? If a number of communions 
make a soul love God more, what possible reason is 
there why that soul should not receive the Blessed 
Sacrament of tener? But is there to be no limit? Yes, 
there is a limit, and we shall see presently, but I know 
of none as long as the Holy Communion continues to do 
good to the soul, or else when the good which it does 
is not counterbalanced by accidental evils. Salus 
populi suprema lex, is ever to be remembered when we 
are dealing with sacraments. 

I may be mistaken, but it seems to me that what we 
all of us want most of all is confidence in the mighty 
indulgence of God. It is safer to preach unmitigated 
confidence in England than elsewhere, for religious pre- 
sumption is by no means an English fault. Nowhere 
has a desperate gloomy Calvinism flourished as it has in 
the British isles. Wherever religion takes thoroughly 
hold of an English mind, out of the Catholic Church, 
ten to one it will take some austere and gloomy form. 
Even Puseyism began with a stern Novatianism. The 
British God has always a tendency to be a tyrant. 
Heaven defend us from such a God as this, a second 
edition of Sivah, the destroyer. Even good Christians 
amongst us have sometimes a certain melancholy about 
their religion. Even our familiar name for God is the 
Almighty, when a Frenchman would say, " le bon 
Dieu," or a German, " der lieber Gott." I suspect we 
English priests hear more about despair than others. 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 307 



Genuine, real despair, is perhaps rare ; what is commonly 
meant is discontent, or bad temper with God; yet, even 
this indicates the general gloomy aspect of our religion. 
For this reason, let us preach frequent communion. It 
seems to me as if to us in England the Blessed Sacra- 
ment was even more than it is elsewhere. All our 
ancient shrines have been long ago destroyed, and the 
relics of our saints scattered to the winds. How diffe- 
rent is the aspect of a Catholic country ! We have only 
to cross the Channel to feel in a Christian atmosphere. 
Every walk may be a pilgrimage ; there are wayside 
chaplets and crucifixes, and the place is poor indeed 
which has not a shrine of our Lady within a reasonable 
distance. But where is an Englishman to take refuge 
from the hurry of this restless vortex of a world? 
Where to be rescued from himself? Where but at the 
feet of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament? Even if we 
were to cease to insist on frequent communion, yet 
weekly communion might be far more general. To 
England, more than elsewhere, it seems to me, do the 
words of Suarez apply: "Ordinarily speaking, so mul- 
titudinous is the business of human life, so many the 
distractions which absorb the mind and take up time, 
that men cannot more than once a week receive the 
Holy Communion with due dispositions, or give as much 
time as is fitting for it. Nevertheless, ordinarily speak- 
ing, there is no difficulty in being fit to communicate 
once a week." Again, let us remember the words of 
another theologian : " There are few to whom weekly 
communion is to be forbidden." Communion once a 
week was, as we have seen, the normal state of things 
for Christians during the greater part of the existence 
of Christianity. Why should it not be so again? Are 



308 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 



then, it will be said, in this working-day world of Eng- 
land, merchants, lawyers, tradesmen, labourers, to com- 
municate once a week ? I answer, why not, if they 
choose to prepare for it? There are exceedingly few 
who could not prepare if they chose. Many a poor 
girl in London, whether dressmaker in Regent-street, 
or costermonger in Covent-garden, has been kept from 
ruin by weekly communion. 

Nothing can be more important than that all who 
have anything to do with the education of children 
should inspire them with loving ideas of the Blessed 
Sacrament. There are many who, by their teaching, 
have rendered Holy Communion a perfect bugbear to 
children. For heaven's sake, let no one have a terror 
of the Holy Communion ! There have been souls to 
whom the day of communion was a very torment, in 
consequence of the injudicious teaching of most worthy 
persons. Above all things, let us inspire those dear 
little souls with love for the Blessed Sacrament. Teach 
them the doctrine. Let them get it well into their 
heads that that is God, and reverential fear will not be 
wanting to their simple souls. Above all, do not 
frighten them by anxious sif tings into things generally 
to be ignored. In one word, teach them love, and all 
else will follow. 

Let us now sum up what has been said in this 
chapter: we shall see that we have made considerable 
progress in ascertaining, not only negatively, what does 
not prevent the frequent reception of the Holy Com- 
munion, but also positively, the style of soul (if I may 
use the expression) which ought to communicate fre- 
quently. 

First, evidently, considerable imperfections are no 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE IMPERFECT. 309 

obstacle. There is a subtle Pelagianism in all the argu- 
ments used against the frequent communion of the 
imperfect. There are many persons, in whose theology 
the doctrine that we can do nothing without Divine 
grace, does not practically exist. They are obliged to 
believe that there is such a thing as grace ; but they act 
and feel as if all improvement depended upon self. 
The fact is, that we must make all possible efforts to 
improve; yet feel all the while that they are rather 
conditions than causes of success. The Blessed Sacra- 
ment will do more than many efforts. Considerable 
imperfections, therefore, are no reason why the soul 
should be deprived of frequent communion/ 

Secondly, though it is not necessary to have van- 
quished our imperfections, it is necessary to have the 
hearty will to get rid of them, and to set no bounds to 
our longing to love God. The one essential thing is, 
that there should be a positive definite struggle against 
our defects. The frequent communicant should be vir 
desideriorum, a man of desires. He must have a desire 
for Holy Communion, based on a desire to vanquish sin. 
Lastly, he should have a desire for union with God 
and a consequent attrait for communion with Him in 
prayer. 



310 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION, 

According to the principles laid down in the last chap- 
ter, it may seem that I am far under the mark in 
expressing a desire that the majority of Christians 
should communicate once a week. As most probably 
by far the greater number of Catholics who practise 
their religion are ordinarily in a state of grace, and as 
the only condition for receiving some benefit from the 
Holy Communion is freedom from mortal sin, it would 
seem that the generality of practising Christians might 
communicate every day. If this were a legitimate in- 
ference, it would be fatal to what has been said. The 
sense of Christians and the common usage of priests 
would be plainly against such a conclusion ; and in re- 
spect to the administration of the Sacraments, common 
feeling and common usage are all but infallible. All 
Christians feel that, in order to communicate twice a 
week, a soul should be, ordinarily speaking, better than 
one who is allowed to receive the Blessed Sacrament 
only once ; in short, that something more is required 
for daily communion than the mere absence of mortal 
sin. The question, therefore, is already decided; yet it 
will be very useful to discuss it, because in the discus- 
sion we shall learn, what it is of great consequence to 
know, the limit to the frequency of communion. It 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY- COMMUNION. 



311 



will be found that, speculatively speaking, two simple 
standards may be assigned, by which a priest may mea- 
sure the number of communions to be granted to an in- 
dividual soul. It may either be said that he may allow 
a soul to communicate frequently, up to the point where 
the communions would involve an irreverence to our 
Lord, or else, it may belaid down, that there is no limit 
whatsoever as long as the Blessed Sacrament continues 
to do good to the soul. I believe, however, that the 
two things, reverence towards God and the good to the 
soul, will be found to be identical, though, practically, 
a priest will find it more convenient to have an eye 
solely to the benefit of the penitent. 

First, then, there are many authorities, by no means 
to be despised, in favour of the opinion, that every 
Christian in a state of grace may, nay, ought to com- 
municate every day. I cannot help thinking that 
Arnauld's book was partly provoked by real laxity in the 
administration of the Holy Eucharist on the part of 
some of his opponents.* Certainly, it is curious that 
the very year in which " La Frequente Communion" 
appeared, a French edition was published, at Lyons, of 
a book written a few years before by Sanchez, a Spanish 
theologian,! advocating the opinion that all Christians 

* That there was some laxity in the casuists of the day is evident 
from the fact, that two of the answers made to the Provinciales were 
condemned by the Church; the " Apologie des Casuistes," by the 
Jesuit Father Pirot, and the book published by the Jesuit Father 
Moya, under the name of " Amadeus Guimeneus." The condemna- 
tions published by Alexander VII and VIII, and Innocent IX, prove 
the same thing. 

t This is not the Jesuit Sanchez who has written the admirable 
treatise " De Matrimonio," All the great Jesuit theologians are 
against the opinion here combated. The prevalence of lax opinions 



312 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



free from mortal sin ought to be advised to communicate 
daily. He claims a number of theologians in support 
of his view; and it is remarkable that two Spanish 
Benedictines are quoted by De Lugo as having held that 
every Christian in a state of grace had a positive right 
to daily communion, and could claim it in spite of the 
prohibition of his confessor. The same abuse continued 
in some places much later in the seventeenth century. 
In February, 1679, the Congregation of the Council 
published a decree, sanctioned by Innocent XI, against 
the practice of universal daily communion, which had 
grown up in certain dioceses, under the notion that it 
was of divine right. Nay, the Blessed Sacrament was 
even carried to the house of those who were in health, 
and received by them in their beds. In the same year 
the same Pope condemned the proposition, that frequent 
confession and communion were a mark of predestina- 
tion, even in those who lived like heathens.* As late, 
again, as the middle of the eighteenth century, a certain, 
Pere Pichon, a French Jesuit, wrote a book to prove 
that the only qualification for daily communion is free- 
dom from mortal sin, and dedicated it to the pious 
Queen of Poland and Duchess of Lorraine. The author, 
after being overwhelmed by episcopal censures, was put 
upon the Index, and recanted his errors in a second 
edition. 

It would be of little use to evoke from their graves 
errors which have been forgotten, if it were not that 
the memory of their condemnation will serve to prevent 

might account for a curious story mentioned by St. Beuve, that De 
Lugo was opposed to the condemnation of Arnauld's book. 

* This proposition was maintained by the Friars Minors in Belgium. 
Jaeger Historia Ecclesiastica, vol. ii, 332. 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



313 



their ever being resuscitated. The fact of their re- 
appearance at intervals, during a period of a century, in 
such various places, and in the teaching of members of 
such respectable orders, is a proof that they have some- 
thing to say for themselves; as they rose once, so they 
might arise again. It may, however, be considered now 
as a point settled by the Church, that it is unlawful to 
teach that every Christian in a state of grace may com- 
municate every day. Something more is wanting 
besides the absence of mortal sin. There is some limit 
to frequent communion. A priest would do wrong if 
he indiscriminately allowed unlimited communions to 
his penitents; and it is possible for penitents to com- 
municate too often. Ordinarily speaking, though not 
always, as we shall see, the number of communions 
should depend upon the goodness of the communicant. 
All these conclusions, which, in fact, are but one, flow 
from the condemnation of the opinions which I have 
noticed. 

But, furthermore, let us examine into the basis of the 
opinion, and we shall then be able to see where the 
mistake lies. Surely, it may be said, as often as the 
soul is benefited and receives grace from the Holy 
Communion, it may be inferred that our Lord intends 
us to receive Him. Now, it is commonly admitted, 
that the sole condition for the reception of grace from 
the Blessed Sacrament is the being in a state of grace. 
Not even is actual devotion necessary for this. A soul 
voluntarily distracted at the moment of communion, 
still receives an augmentation of grace. Our Lord 
infuses grace into the soul of a Christian who commits 
a venial sin at the very instant of receiving Him. If 
all this is allowed generally, if it is also undoubted that 



314 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



our Lord loves the confidence which approaches Him, 
rather than the fear which separates us from Him, 
why, then, should not all Christians in a state of grace 
communicate every day, since every day they receive 
an augmentation of divine grace, whatever their dis- 
positions may be, however little they may have prepared 
themselves? Surely, the infinite love of Jesus would 
have us unite ourselves to Him as often as it benefits 
our souls. 

Such is the case for the opinion condemned. Let us, 
however, recollect what has been said about the effects 
which flow from the reception of the Holy Communion, 
It is perfectly true that every communion received by 
a person free from jnortal sin, produces an increase of 
sanctifying grace; but actual, deliberate, venial sin, 
committed at the moment, or else an indevout commu- 
nion, hinders the sacramental graces which are peculiar 
to the Holy Eucharist. The reason why St. Thomas 
pronounces that a Christian in the habit of committing 
venial sins may still communicate is because, by a 
devout preparation for the Blessed Sacrament, he repents 
sincerely of them, and therefore receives all the actual 
graces of the Holy Communion. If, however, there is 
a wilful waste of grace, the case is totally changed. In 
the same w r ay it was argued that there was no irre- 
verence in the frequent communion of the imperfect, 
because a habit of venial sin, without attachment to it, 
does not prevent the reception of any of the kinds of 
graces attached to the Blessed Sacrament, though it 
may interfere with the degree and the quantity of 
them. Far different is the case we are considering. It 
presupposes that the sole qualification for daily commu- 
nion is the absence of mortal sin; consequently that 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



315 



even when communions are indevout, when habits of 
venial sin have fearful possession of the soul, because 
the soul consciously loves them, even then the Christian 
ought to communicate daily. To every word of this 
sentence, premiss and conclusion, theology gives a most 
emphatic nego. When communions are indevout, no 
penitent ought to be allowed to communicate frequently. 
The actual graces peculiar to the sacrament are wasted. 
There are no burning acts of the love of God, elicited 
by the presence of Jesus, when a soul is so badly dis- 
posed. No supernatural sweetness is infused by God. 
The whole ground of the opinion which we are review- 
ing is cut away by the assertion of theologians, that 
something more is wanted for a good communion 
than the bare freedom from mortal sin. The state of 
grace is enough to prevent sacrilege, but not enough to 
authorize unlimited communions. 

But it will be said, a person who communicates daily 
will not make indevout communions. Now, first of all, 
this is changing the whole hypothesis. It is allowing 
what I am contending for, viz., that devotion is neces- 
sary for frequent communion. Secondly, I cannot 
think that daily communion, by any physical or fatal 
necessity, ensures devotion. This is not God's way. 
Devotion does not drop from the clouds, nor does grace 
make its way into a soul which wilfully puts an obstacle 
to it. Let us never forget that we must do something on 
our part to obtain these dispositions, and moreover, that 
they are necessary. It requires a little thought to master 
the idea that the dispositions are mere conditions of grace, 
and yet necessarily influence its effects on the soul. The 
action of grace, ex opere operato, has been sometimes 
compared to that of fire burning wood ; the dryness of the 



316 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



wood is in no way the cause of the application of the 
fire, yet it is a condition of its catching. I would 
rather compare the infusion of grace by the sacraments 
to the operation of God in the creation of a new soul. 
God has in the natural order no more august and 
solemn act than that. It is a direct exertion of His 
creative power as truly as when He first said, Let there 
be light, and simultaneously with the first dawn of 
light, myriads of angels were born. The new soul is 
created out of nothing. There is no pre-existent sub- 
stance out of which the soul is made. It is a new inde- 
pendent spirit formed by God alone, and all the paternal 
love rises up in the bosom of the Holy Trinity as when 
they said, Let us make man in our own image. Yet 
this most august act on the part of God is necessarily 
chained to material dispositions. What is more, though 
these laws are conditions and not causes, yet they 
greatly influence the state of the immortal spirit then 
created. If the brain which it informs is defective, it 
never rises to consciousness of itself; the child is an 
idiot, and its powers lie dormant without ever breaking 
out into act. It is impossible to say how much prompt, 
quick, keen-visioned genius depends upon the tempera- 
ment of the body. Here, then, is a great act of God, 
infallibly following upon material laws, and dependent 
upon them as its condition, though not its cause, while, 
on the other hand, God's gift is greatly influenced by 
them. So it is also with the opus operatum of the 
sacraments. Grace flows, but it may find itself ob- 
structed by the bad dispositions of the soul. It may 
lie inactive when it is received. It may run like water 
off the cold, unreceptive rock, which may be worn and 
wasted by it, but cannot assimilate it ; and such is the 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 317 



case with God's actual inspirations. No corresponding 
movement rises in the soul to the embrace of God. 
The ice in its bosom may even extinguish the fire of 
God's love. Surely, if the dispositions of the commu- 
nicant have so great an influence over the grace 
received, that communion may, in a very true sense, be 
called unworthy when the dispositions are such as to 
destroy the peculiar effects of the Blessed Sacrament. 

Furthermore, so little is it true that the soul is bene- 
fited by a communion under the circumstances de- 
scribed, that even the very grace which the soul does 
receive is neutralized and rendered inactive. Let us 
recollect what has been already said about the necessity 
for actual grace, to enable us to make any use what- 
ever of habitual grace. God has not, in justifying 
us, put into our souls a fund of habitual grace, upon 
which we are to draw as we please without any further 
aid from Him. It has been already shown that habitual 
grace, though it remains permanently in the soul, 
requires the constant aid of actual graces to excite it to 
action, and that without the continual influx of these 
graces from heaven it lies inactive within us. It is 
impossible to exaggerate our constant need of God. 
We require to live and move in a supernatural atmo- 
sphere of heavenly influences rained down upon us at 
every moment, or else we die. We can never be 
weaned from God; the older we grow the greater 
seems our dependence. Nay, a saint is only a being 
who has become so one with God that he clings more 
constantly to His maternal bosom. He, therefore, can 
hardly be said to be benefited by the Holy Commu- 
nion, who, though he receives an increase of habitual 
grace, yet cuts himself off by his indevoutness from 



318 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



the other graces which alone make it active, and which 
are necessary to his spiritual existence. 

Let us ponder well the words of a great theologian 
on the subject of indevout communions: "They who 
frequently communicate without actual love and with- 
out devotion, although they receive an augmentation 
of grace, often do not show more fervour in their con- 
duct; both because infused habits do not mortify the 
passions, nor take away the feebleness left in the soul 
after the habits of vice, as acquired habits do, and also 
because habits of grace and charity do their work 
immediately through actual graces which are not given 
to indevout communicants. For this reason it is that 
thev appear so lukewarm and languid in their spiritual 
exercises. And because tepidity and the want of 
actual aids from God negatively dispose the soul to a 
grievous fall, therefore, carelessness in this respect is 
very dangerous, for it disposes to grave falls, and often 
brings clown the curse of God."* 

The waste of grace, then, is quite a sufficient reason 
why such communions as are described, should be dan- 
gerous. We cannot afford to lose an atom of grace, 
for we cannot say that any one grace is superfluous. 
There are, however, other positive evils resulting from 
them besides the loss of grace. No greater evil can 
possibly happen to a soul than the loss of reverence for 
God. One of the principal effects of the Holy Com- 
munion is precisely that blessed, chaste fear of God, 
which thrills through our very flesh, and tends to make 
mortal sin impossible. Now, nothing destroys this feel- 
ing like a series of free and easy communions. Let no 



Viva, Dam. Prop. 23, Alexander VIII. 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



319 



one think them a light evil. It is not too much to say 
that our salvation depends upon the preservation in our 
soul of the thought of God in its entireness. The idea 
of God, which comes like a vision from heaven upon 
the soul, is but too easily blurred and defaced. It 
should be cherished as a precious gift from God Him- 
self. It cannot come from earth, or sea, or heaven ; 
the voice of the sea is not mighty enough to teach us 
what is God ; nor is the whole universe wide enough to 
give us a notion of the Infinite God. It must come 
from the Word, illuminating every man that cometh 
into the world. It may be a reminiscence of the first 
moment of its existence, the feeling still fresh of God's 
first embrace when the breath of life came upon it, the 
echoes of the first whisper of the Spirit of God to our 
spirit. Or, rather is it not the continued feeling of the 
pressure of the presence of God upon it at every moment 
of its existence in this world here below? But whence- 
soever it comes, we have, a fearful power over it. Like 
God it is one, because it is an impression from God 
Himself, as from a seal, stamping His own image 
on our souls. No part can be taken from it without 
its destruction. Each attribute is God, and you cannot 
eliminate one without vitiating the whole^ idea of 
Him. Just so fatal in its degree is any vitiation of 
our feeling towards God. There is no sense so delicate 
or so easily impaired as our sense of God. Our concep- 
tion of Him is made up of a number of elements not so 
much blended together in just proportions, as each pos- 
sessing the soul without prejudice to the rest. It is at 
once all chaste fear and all entrancing love ; love and 
fear, each penetrating the other, not confined to sepa- 
rate spheres within us, but diffused throughout our 



320 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



powers, and rising up to God in one great feeling of 
adoration. 

Woe, then, to the soul whose reverence for God is 
disturbed. The image of God upon it is not only writ 
in water, but its outlines are confused and run wildly to- 
gether. Its whole attitude towards God is wrong, and 
the angels in heaven would weep, if they could, to see 
it approach Him with such disrespect. You might as 
well take away an attribute from your thought of God, 
as a feeling from your conduct towards Him. Now, if 
there be one thing more than another likelv to breed 
irreverence towards Him, it is careless communion. 
There is a familiarity with God which is not irreve- 
rence, and I am not talking about that. I mean prepara- 
tions and thanksgivings, either careless or non-existent, 
without a wish or an effort to avoid sin or to lead a 
better life. 

Besides, we are such poor, miserable creatures, that 
there is a limit to our devotion. Each communion is or 
ought to be a distinct effort, and it does not follow that 
because that effort can be made with ease and delight 
once, it would be elicited twice without a fatal weari- 
ness. I believe it will be found that the average devo- 
tion of mankind cannot stand more communions than 
one in a week, with the addition of particular festivals. 
" Sitientes, sitientes venite ad aquas," St. Philip used to 
say, and in order to keep up this vehement desire of 
Holy Communion, he would at times refuse his peni- 
tents leave to approach the altar as often as they 
wished. 

Moreover, the Church herself has consecrated the 
principle, that it would even be better to sacrifice some 
increase of grace rather than incur the tremendous risk 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



321 



of inducing in the soul any irreverence towards our 
Lord. For this reason it is not allowed to administer 
the Holy Communion to the dying, when their illness 
is such as to endanger the rejection of the Sacred Host. 
Again, it is forbidden to receive the Blessed Sacrament 
more than once in one day, though in ancient times, 
instances are to be found of holy priests celebrating 
several times a day, out of simple devotion. Nor must 
we forget that most remarkable instance of the same 
principle,* where the Church calls upon her children 
to sacrifice some additional grace, to be derived from 
the chalice, for fear of irreverence to the Precious 
Blood. 

I cannot conceive that, unless our Blessed Lord had 
known that no amount of accidental good could pos- 
sibly counterbalance the tremendous evil to our souls 
of anything which would breed a habit of irreverence 
towards Him, He would have allowed the faithful to 
be deprived of any additional grace, however unessen- 
tial. Considering His Passion, we know Him too well 
to suppose that it could be from any dread of ignominy 
to Himself that He thus inspired His Church. It 
would have fulfilled all the essentials of redemption, if 
the Precious Blood had been shed on the day of His 
Passion with sacrificed solemnity. Angels might have 
received it in golden chalice. It would have been 
tolerable even if it had been shed on innocent, inani- 

* Concilium non voluit negare aliquam novam gratiam conferri per 
calicem. Admoneo ex hac doctrina non fieri, ullomodo posse aliquos 
merito conqueri de Ecclesia quod usum Calicis laicis interdixerit, turn 

quia fructus substantialis et prsecipuus in singulis speciebus habetur 

turn etiam quia hujus in sacramenti dispensatione attendendura non 
solum ad suscipientium utilitatem sed etiam ad ipsius sacramenti re- 
verentiam. De Lugo, Disp. xii, 3. 

Y 



322 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



mate things of God's own making. We can bear to 
think of it on the green grass or the olive roots of the 
garden of Gethsemane. O blessed Cross ! we do not 
grudge it thee, nor even to the points of the crown of 
thorns; but imagination sickens when we remember 
how it lay on the stones and the dust of the wicked 
city, to be trampled under foot by that dreadful crowd ; 
how it streamed on the hands and clothes of the men 
who nailed Him to the Cross. Surely, after that, it 
cannot be simply the dread of irreverence to Himself 
which makes Him dread the spilling of His Blood from 
the chalice. Most willingly He would shed it over 
again, with all the same circumstances of ignominy, if 
it could possibly add to the chance of our salvation. 
But He knew well that disrespect to Him would be an 
irreparable evil for us, and, for this reason, He would 
have us sacrifice the non-essential additional grace of 
the chalice, lest even accidental irreverence should pro- 
duce in us a formal habit of disrespect towards Him. 

It is plain, then, that frequent communions in those 
who are unfit for them bring positive evils with them. 
Something more is wanting than the mere state of 
grace, to authorize a priest to grant them to his peni- 
tents; and if a man has neither desire nor devotion 
enough to prepare for two communions a week, he had 
better content himself with one, than run the risk of 
growing careless and irreverent towards the Blessed 
Sacrament. 

Furthermore, at the risk of a bathos, I cannot help 
speaking of another positive evil resulting from over- 
frequent communions. It is a disease which infects 
some of the devout, and which, for want of a better 
name, I will call vain glory. Alas ! poor human nature, 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



323 



can it be that from tlie Body and Blood of Jesus you 
suck such poison — such desperate littleness from His 
Divine Heart? Let us, however, deal gently with 
them, for are they not dear to God; in a state of grace, 
we hope, and on their way to heaven, though after a 
long purgatory? Let us quietly analyze together the 
disease which I have called vain glory. I must say it 
has a basis which is excusable. It is natural to wish to 
know that we love God. We are glad to feel that our 
director thinks so, and we look upon the number of 
communions which he allows us as an index of his opi- 
nion to that effect. Yet this, too, is one of the un vera- 
cities of the spiritual life. First of all, it might by no 
means be good for us to know how much, nay, how 
little we love God. Let us look bravely out of our- 
selves upon God, for there, after all, are our hopes of 
salvation. We have been absolved, we are very sorry 
for our great sins ; we commit the worst of them no 
more ; we have every reason to hope that we are in 
God's grace. For the rest, we must trust in God. We 
lie in our little boat, floating on the bosom of God's 
great ocean of mercy, infinite depths below and infinite 
above ; for such is our condition here. God loves all 
His creatures, and longs to save them all. He has 
proved it upon the Cross. Nay, we have every reason 
to think that He intends to save us. Has He not 
brought us to His Holy Church, either from our in- 
fancy, or by converting us from heresy? We love the 
faith, we love the Blessed Sacrament. We love His 
Blessed Mother, though too little, yet sincerely. All 
these are marks of Predestination. For the rest, nine 
yourself upon God's infinite love. Alas ! our little 
Pharisaical mint and cummin will avail but little at the 



324 THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 

day of judgment, if that does not help us. Secondly, 
let us be sure that all this anxiety to know how we 
stand with God has very much of self in it. Each of 
us has before him an ideal of himself, up to which he 
tries to act, and which he would fain think real. Many 
a man worships this pure abstract Ego, and, in Stoic 
fashion, would make all his life logically consistent 
with it, feels remorse whenever he falls short of it, and 
is sternly glad whenever he attains it. They do not 
suspect how little there is of God and His Holy Spirit 
in all this. It is like the spectre of the Brocken, of 
which we have read of old. A man sees before him a 
gigantic figure, which he takes for a being of the in- 
visible world, little dreaming that it is only an enlarged 
vision of self, swollen as it is by the cunning witchery 
of light. Now, the first step in real devotion, and in 
the supernatural life, is the destruction of this spiritual 
idol before which we are grimacing and arranging our 
attitudes. Then first we learn to give up our own 
views, and to fix our eyes on God. So true is this, that 
even at times a positive sin has turned out to be useful, 
if only it has dashed to earth this idol of self, so that 
God's Holy Spirit may build upon its ruins. Whatever 
flatters this self-consciousness, whatever turns the in- 
ward eye upon self, and makes us fancy ourselves good, 
is an unmixed evil, if it were frequent communion 
itself. Oh ! that we had quiet, unconscious devotion, a 
thing, we may add, possessed by few converts. Let us 
take this to heart, for, certainly, a desire for an increase 
of communions, based upon this, does not come from 
God. 

Again, it must be said, this wishing to know what 
opinion our director has of us is a delusion and a snare. 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 325 

He, too, is not God, nor will he lead us to God, if we 
care in the slightest degree what he thinks of us. If 
once you catch yourself speculating on what may be 
his view of you, put the thought down, for it is the be- 
ginning of all unveracity. A certain regard for one 
who leads you to God no one can blame, but when it 
comes to anxiety to be well thought of by him, that is 
quite another thing. Then good-bye to all reality. 
Hence heart-burnings and jealousies. Hence thoughts 
that others communicate oftener than you, and con- 
sequent taking of scandal at their defects. Hence ten 
thousand littlenesses. 

Now, let us pause and see where we are in our argu- 
ment. We have found many positive evils resulting 
from over-frequent communion, each of them quite 
sufficient to counterbalance the good which accrues to 
the soul from the increase of sanctifying grace. It is 
plain, then, on the one hand, that the state of grace is 
not a sufficient qualification for unlimited communions ; 
and on the other, what is still more to our purpose, we 
have discovered that the obstacles to communion are 
all such dispositions of the soul as make the Blessed 
Sacrament accidentally hurtful to it. In other words, 
a priest may allow his penitent to communicate just as 
often as he finds that it is good for him. 

This, then, is what we have to keep steadily in view, 
the good of the individual soul. A rule, you will say, 
very vague and uncertain ; yet, I think, in practice you 
will find it not so. 

Let us apply it by way of example to a familiar case. 
A person comes to confession weekly; he never or very 
seldom has mortal sins to confess, but is perpetually 
falling into venial sins. Is he to be allowed to commu- 



326 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



cate weekly ? There cannot be the slightest doubt as 
to the view of theologians on this point. For instance, 
Scaramelli says, " A director can and ought to allow 
weekly communion to all souls who have sufficient dis- 
positions for absolution. Such is the common view of 
confessors, and such seems to be the present practice of 
the Church." Suarez says: "Weekly communion is 
not to be omitted on account of venial sins alone, because 
it is already a great effect of the Sacrament, to avoid 
mortal sins." St. Alphonso's words are still stronger: 
"As for those persons who are not in danger of com- 
mitting mortal sins, but who commit ordinarily delibe- 
rate venial sins, without the appearance of any amend- 
ment or desire of amendment, it will be best not to 
allow them communion more than once a week."* 
From these authorities it is evident that our imaginary 
person, notwithstanding his venial sins, ought to be 
allowed weekly communion. On what principle are we 
to ground a practice so universal in its application ? 
Clearly no other reason can be found except that the 
Holy Communion is proved by experience to be of use 

* If St. Alphonso's words were to be taken without drawback, they 
would be contrary to Viva's view, that a deliberate affection to venial 
sin is fatal to the most useful eifects of communion. We must, how- 
ever, not forget that they are to be taken in connection with the common 
opinion of ascetical writers, that deliberate venial sins are, on the long 
run, sure to lead to mortal sins. The case, therefore, so strongly 
stated is hardly practicable. A person who came to confession every 
week would be very unlikely to commit venial sins with full delibera- 
tion. If they continually do so, then we must remember the opinion 
of St. Alphonso, following those words quoted above, that it is useful 
at times to deprive them of communion for a week. Thus much, 
however, follows from the saint's words, that he does not agree with 
St. Francis of Sales, who says that an absence of all affection for 
venial sin is a condition for weekly communion. 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



327 



to the soul. The good of the recipient is to be con- 
sulted notwithstanding the waste of a great deal of 
grace. An inestimable effect is secured, the prevention 
of countless mortal sins, and our Lord waives the con- 
sideration of the accidental disrespect done by the spil- 
ling of so much grace, in order to secure this enormous 
benefit for the soul of the communicant. 

On the other hand, the writers quoted are peremptory 
in forbidding such souls to communicate oftener, because 
a weekly communion is sufficient for their good, while 
the waste of grace would not be counterbalanced by 
any benefit accruing to the recipient. Thus, in either 
case, the measure both in the giving and the withhold- 
ing of Holy Communion is the amount of good done to 
the soul, as proved by experience. 

Many advantages are gained by the establishment of 
this rule. 

First, it enables us to eliminate all scrupulous fears 
about irreverence to the Blessed Sacrament As long 
as real good is done to the soul, there is no irreverence. 
Thus, if it be found by experience, as I think it is, that 
the generality of practising Christians can be kept out 
of mortal sin by a weekly communion, then let them 
communicate weekly, the priest in the meanwhile stimu- 
lating them to do something for God, content, how- 
ever, as God is, to get what little he can. If he can get 
more, then let them communicate oftener. Nor let him 
even be anxious if he cannot positively cure them of 
some habit of venial sin. Let them struggle earnestly 
and sincerely, that is enough. Let the soul be militant 
and real, even though at times, poor soul, it be defeated. 
Then in proportion as habits of mental prayer are formed 
and dawnings of union with God and mystical life 



328 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



appear, then let communions be gradually increased. As 
for daily communion, let it be very, very rare indeed. 
Paucissimi, says Vasquez, very few are fit for it. It 
may be that there are now too many daily communi- 
cants. 

Another advantage of this rule is, that it is not a 
wooden one. It admits of a flexible application accord- 
ing to the wants of the individual. In such a subject- 
matter a more definite rule is impossible. The Church 
has always refused to lay down a positive rule, but has 
left the frequency of communion to the judgment of 
the confessor. When, for instance, on account of grave 
and most real abuses, certain bishops were anxious to 
forbid communion except on particular days, Innocent 
XI, in a decree which is the latest legislation of the 
Church on the subject, forbids so stiff a rule, and 
leaves the decision of each particular case to the con- 
fessor: "The frequency of communion is to be left to 
the judgment of confessors, who are bound to prescribe 
to laymen whatever they consider to be profitable for 
their salvation, according to the purity of their con- 
science, the fruit derived from the reception, and their 
progress in piety." We must, therefore, look to the 
individual soul. Souls cannot be ticketed and labelled, 
organised and administered. No man can say, this 
class of soul shall do this or that according to a wooden 
rule. Each soul is to be studied by itself, to be watched 
and prayed over, not to be talked much to, except with 
a few kind, gentle, encouraging words, in order to direct 
it, in plain terms, what it is to do, then to wait quietly for 
something more that God wants. There is to be no 
alternation of oracular precipitation, and, on the other 
hand, of obstinate stiffness and woodness. God's Holy 



THE LIMIT TO HOLY COMMUNION. 



329 



Spirit is its director, and He administers it, not you, 
except as His most humble servant. Have no precon- 
ceived notions. For instance, do not say to this soul : 
Thou shalt have a vocation, and thou shalt go into this 
order because I like it; but say to yourself honestly: 
This soul shall do whatever God's Holy Spirit wills, 
and she shall go anywhere, to the other end of the 
earth, if so be, to be active, to be contemplative, just 
as God wills. In this matter, also, of the number of 
its communions as. in everything else, think what He 
wants with the soul, and how the soul corresponds to 
it; study with what desires of Holy Communion He 
inspires it, and act accordingly, only be sure the desire 
comes from Him. 

But how are we to know when it comes from Him? 
There is such a thing as discernment of spirits, much 
neglected, indeed, now-a-days, nevertheless very real, 
nay, very accessible to every priest, and to be prayed 
for. There are marks enough by which we may know 
a sincere soul when we see one. When it has no illu- 
sions, when it goes straight to God and forgets self, 
when it struggles with its sins and is sorry for them, 
when it loves prayer, and in proportion as it does so, 
let it communicate frequently, and you are safe. 



330 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



CHAPTEE Y. 

THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



A thing exists which is the destruction of optimism, 
and which I confess, inclines me naturally to take 
gloomy views of the world and of its prospects, and 
that is sin. They can afford to take a cheerful view 
of things in general, whose knowledge of sin is con- 
fined to the fact, that men and women are sometimes 
hanged, and transported, and imprisoned ; but as for 
those who, in any capacity, come face to face with sin, 
and do their best to grapple with it, and who, therefore, 
know its awful strength, for those who have to de- 
scend into the foul depths of a rotten society and to 
work amongst its horrors, it is very hard to speak 
otherwise than sadly of a world where it exists. O 
beautiful world of God ! it is easy to be happy in the 
merry springtime, when the lark sings its song on high, 
as if its little heart was w T ild with joy, and the chesnut- 
trees put on their robe of white blossom; but look, 
down there is that great wicked town, hiding unuttera- 
ble things under its pall of smoke, cloaca maxima of 
the universe. Look at its great river, as it rolls down 
its mass of waters to the sea, surging around the piers 
of its stately bridges, how beautiful it looks glancing 
in the light, wdien the setting sun dyes its black pools 
crimson and purple ! yet, we all know that the filth of 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



331 



a city is rolled along in its depths, beneath the flashes 
of that intolerable splendour. Just such is the huge 
city itself, and who are we that we should plunge into 
its horrible whirlpools to save drowning souls? The 
morality of England! I could laugh, if it did not 
move me to bitter tears, when I hear the self-compla- 
cent folly which is talked about it. There is not in all 
God's universe a place where sin is more shameless and 
open than London ! Away with all such unveracities 
While you are congratulating yourselves upon the de- 
cency of your middle classes and the purity of your 
homes, all who have an opportunity of judging, will 
tell you of the animal brutality of country places, of 
the rude orgies of your seashores, and of the syste- 
matic profligacy of your manufacturing towns. We 
will keep well to windward of all this. The only 
question with which we have to do is the mode of 
remedying it. 

We have nothing here to do with natural remedies ; 
indeed, I disbelieve in their efficacy, except as auxilia- 
ries. I have a thorough scepticism as to the moral 
progress of man. I quite allow that we have made 
great intellectual advances since the middle ages ; I am 
even prepared to admit that medieval men were, in 
many respects, very like savages ; yet I do not think 
that we are more moral than they. As far as we can 
see by experience, the tendency of merely secular 
civilization is to produce disbelief in hell ; now, with- 
out the doctrine of eternal punishment, the belief in 
the Christian notion of sin, as an infinite evil, neces- 
sarily disappears, and with it the doctrine of redemp- 
tion. The atonement wrought by Christ and everlasting 
punishment are correlatives; if you take one out of 



332 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



the creed, the other necessarily shares its fate. Now, 
the tendency of civilization is evidently to substitute 
respectability, decency, and honour for the horror of 
sin; and there are wild passions in the human heart 
which laugh such frail barriers to scorn. It may even 
be doubted whether a high education has any tendency 
to diminish sin. It may make men less noisy and less 
brutal, does it make them less sinful? The over- 
whelming interest of intellectual pursuits may, in a 
few rare instances, lull the passions to sleep for a time : 
but there are only a few gifted minds who can thus be 
absorbed in thought. The generality of the educated 
will be always bad. Certainly, English and German 
universities are not famous for their morals. Then, as 
to the masses who must ever toil and labour, whose 
life must be ever material, it is a mere mockery to talk 
to them of the blessings of education ! You will fill 
your museums with graceful statues, by way of mak- 
ing them more moral. You give them a drop from 
the cup of knowledge, enough to excite their curiosity, 
and to raise in them a thirst which, like eating olives, 
only creates a greater capacity for sensual intoxication. 
In infinitesimal doses knowledge is not an anodyne. It 
is in vain to try to make them better by rousing in 
them the lust of the eye and the pride of life. I never 
heard that contact with civilization did much more for 
savages than teach them drunkenness. It intensified 
the effeminate weakness of the islander of the Pacific, 
and drove to madness the hardy Iroquois, inserting 
vices among the virtues of his former Spartan educa- 
tion. So with the wild creatures who issue in crowds 
into the streets of our manufacturing towns, when the 
bell summons or dismisses them, I do not believe that edu- 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



333 



cation apart from religion will make them less vicious. 
Nay, I doubt the virtue of a Catholic gentleman unless 
he is devout. Would you have us, then, return to 
the darkness of the middle ages ? Nay, dear reader, 
God has placed us all in the nineteenth century, and 
we must work there our appointed work. Since God 
so wills it, we must fling ourselves into that terrible 
melee, and grow pale over our books like our neigh- 
bours. We must educate our poor children to the 
uttermost ; nay, teach them that articles are adjectives, 
and the girth of the equator, else they will be unable 
to get their living. But forgive me if I take no 
interest in mere education, and regret the simplicity of 
our ancestors. I do not regret painted windows or 
pointed arches, but I do mourn over the old devotion. 
I regret the old blue heaven, and the time when men 
pointed upwards, and thought it was a firmament, a 
solid thing, nay, the very sapphire pavement of God's 
blessed throne, where Jesus was waiting for us with 
Mary and the angels. Is it gone for ever, then, the 
spontaneous outgoing of the soul to God, so much a 
part of self that it was unreasoning and unconscious? 
I hope not, provided, with all our education, we are 
loving, faithful, and devout. 

Meanwhile, the torrent of sin is surging horribly 
around us. I cannot read without shuddering of the 
dreadful statistics of sin, and who is there to oppose it but 
the Church of God? A new science is springing up, 
which chronicles crime, and professes that, according 
to some unknown law, sins recur year by year, accord- 
ing to some regular proportion. u In everything which 
concerns crime, the same numbers re-occur with a con- 
stancy which cannot be mistaken ; and that is the case 



334 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



even with those crimes which seem quite independent 
of human foresight; such, for instance, as murders, 
which are generally committed after quarrels arising 
from circumstances apparently casual. Nevertheless, we 
know from experience that every year there not only 
take place nearly the same number of murders, but 
that even the instruments by which they are committed 
are employed in the same proportion." Dreadful 
arithmetic, each unit of which represents a tragedy, 
where cruel lust, or the love of gain, or hatred, or re- 
venge, play their awful part ! If this be true, then 
the wildest passions have their terrible rhythm, and 
sing their mad songs with a beat, regular as the palpi- 
tations of the heart, to the frantic tune of some devil's 
music. Sin comes year by year in successive waves, 
and there is a method in its madness, as in the surging 
tides of the most tumultuous sea. There is even a 
fearful regularity in the annual numbers of public and 
registered suicides,* so that even the accents of despair 
have a measure of their own, and a system which can 
be ascertained. Thanks be to God, we have a super- 
natural charm, more potent than the spells of hell, to 
lull these passions to sleep. In the case of each indivi- 
dual soul all these calculations come to nought. You 
may, if you say true, prophesy the number of crimes 
likely to be committed in a year, in a given country, 
but your science is at fault, if you attempt to predict 
the fate of this or that man. Now, it is precisely over 
individual souls that the sacraments give us an unri- 
valled power. The world may cry to us, " Who are 

* The latest researches of M. Casper confirm the statement of ear- 
lier statisticians, that suicide is more frequent among Protestants than 
among Catholics. Buckle's Civilization in England, p. 56. 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



335 



you who forgive sins? there is none who can do that 
but God." But we can only point with joy and thank- 
fulness to Him who has said to us: " Receive ye the 
Holy Ghost: whosesoever sins ye remit they are re- 
mitted." 

Never, at any period of the Church, were the sacra- 
ments brought to bear upon the destruction of sin as 
now. According to her present discipline, she almost 
trusts now to the sacraments alone. In the annihila- 
tion of habits of sin the Blessed Sacrament plays a 
part greater than at any other period of her existence. 
Never, at any period, was its action denied. The 
study of its administration in the early ages has 
shown us many instances, in the most rigid times, when 
the Holy Communion was granted to the most heinous 
sinners. Nevertheless, in many other instances the 
Church trusted to severe measures, to fasting and 
austerities, in order to break the power of habitual sins. 
Now, however, she has abolished that part of her 
ancient discipline. Without having lost the right, she 
seldom exercises her power of coercing her children. 
The nations have unqueened her, and she revenges 
herself upon them by becoming more than ever a 
mother. It is of a piece with her whole modern policy. 
In almost every case she trusts to the love and loyalty 
of her children. She has not abandoned her un- 
doubted prerogatives, but all that she insists upon is a 
clear stage and no favour: room for her sacraments, 
and a free course for the Precious Blood. 

All this has much simplified the duty of a priest. 
He has to eliminate from his mind all notion of 
punishing a sinner. He is a judge, but one who must 
ever lean to the side of mercy. His duty is kindness 



336 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



to the sinner: his one object how besL to free him from 
sin. The universal condemnation of Jansenism is the 
solemn protest of the Church that absolution may be 
given at once to the sinner on the minimum of neces- 
sary dispositions, and on the most slender possible 
evidence of his possessing them, and that it is her will 
to employ the Blessed Sacrament as the most powerful 
means of curing sinful habits. We have seen that the 
very essence of that unamiable heresy is the deferring 
of absolution till penance had been done, and the sus- 
pension of communion till the habit of sin had been 
broken. We are spared the trouble of proving these 
most important points, and we have only to study the 
action of the Holy Communion upon sin, and to find 
rules for its employment in this merciful work. 

There is no question as to the lawfulness of allowing 
the Blessed Sacrament in the case of those who are 
guilty of single mortal sins, of whatever kind; almost 
as a matter of course, absolution is followed at once by 
Holy Communion. Nor is there even any difficulty 
with a habitudinarian, that is, a sinner who confesses a 
habit of sin for the first time. But we w r ill suppose the 
case of a recidive, as he is technically called, that is, 
one who is continually for some time coming to confes- 
sion with the same sin, of whatever kind, intoxication, 
swearing, or what you will. He comes to confession 
quite regularly every week. He is not in any wilful 
proximate occasion of sin, yet such is the force of 
habit, that he at intervals, for a long time together, has 
to confess more or less instances of the same sin. 
What are we to think of him ? can he be sincere ? is 
he to be allowed to communicate once a week, accord- 
ing to the rule laid down for the generality of Chris- 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



337 



tians? The resolution of these questions will oblige 
us to consider a little more closely the phenomena of 
habits. 

As to the possibility of his sincerity, it would be a 
waste of time to stop to prove it. Every one feels 
that, because a man falls into sin to-day, it does not 
follow that he was not really resolved not to commit it 
yesterday. But I will go a step beyond this. I believe 
that, in some cases, there is a certainty of his being 
sincere at the moment of absolution. I mean that, sup- 
posing at that instant the temptation had presented 
itself to him, he was willing rather to die than to yield 
to it. First, it is certain that, according to the pre- 
sent practice of the confessional, the habitual sinner 
would very often receive absolution. In other words, 
there is a practical judgment on the part of the priests 
of Christendom, that in such a case a sinner is at that 
instant sincere, in the sense which I have attached to 
the word. At their peril they absolve him, because, 
except in rare cases which have been touched upon, a 
priest is obliged to form to himself a moral certainty of 
the good dispositions of the penitent at the moment. I 
cannot help thinking that this testimony is most valu- 
able. Who can tell so well as a priest? Who but God 
and he are witnesses to the broken-heartedness of the 
sinner? The Holy Spirit gives him a supernatural 
instinct over and above that which he has acquired 
through long intercourse with souls. Who, like a 
priest, can judge of souls, who lay themselves open to 
him as much as one man can make himself known to 
another? As for myself, I can only say that my own 
experience has made me think more highly of mankind 
than ever I did before. It has given me a glimpse of 

z 



338 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



the feelings of Jesus towards poor human nature, so 
powerfully attracted to good, yet so miserably weak 
under temptation. 

I know that it has been said in former times by a 
famous French preacher, and an authority not to be 
despised, that a very great many absolutions are inva- 
lid ; but I must confess that I am a weak brother in 
this instance, and that the proposition scandalizes me. 
I cannot bear to think of such a waste of the Precious 
Blood, and I do not believe that God would permit it. 
The thought would paralyze all the efforts of priests. 
It would reduce their office to a miserable sham. No- 
thing could be more fatal to sinners if such an idea got 
abroad, for one of their most powerful motives to re- 
sisting the temptation to fall again into sin, is the thought 
that they are again in a state of grace. The statement 
seems to me to be one of those many echoes of Jansen- 
ism which startle us so often in the writers of the 
period* 

Furthermore, it seems to me that theology is strongly 
against such a painful assertion. Let us remember how 
St. Alphonso insists upon its being the duty of a priest 
not to give absolution unless he has a moral certainty 
of the adequate dispositions of his penitent. On the 
other hand, let us see what he considers sufficient. A 
recidive, he says, is not to be absolved without what he 
calls extraordinary marks of contrition. Amongst them 
he reckons the coming to confession at a time when 
there is no external motive to do so, as, for instance, 
when no pressure of Paschal duty urges him on, if he 

* " II y a done bien des confessions nulles? J'en conviens, et la- 
dessus n'oserais pas presque declarer tout ce que je pense," — Bourda- 
loue, " Pensees sur le Sacrement de Penitence." 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



339 



lias put himself to inconvenience in order to approach 
the sacraments. What greater proof can there be that 
the saint considers in such a case the spontaneous com- 
ing to confession in itself to be a considerable presump- 
tion in favour of the good dispositions of the penitent? 
Let us consider all that is involved in the act of ap- 
proaching the Sacrament of Penance in the case of a 
good Catholic, who has the faith in him. What should 
bring him to confession at all but the strong wish to be 
in favour with God, and to get rid of his sins? The 
time is passed when the world recompensed devotion. 
Tartuffe might be a reality in the seventeenth century ; 
he could hardly exist in the nineteenth. One advan- 
tage of the present abnormal position of the Church is, 
that it has cleared us of hypocrites. When a man may 
proclaim himself on the housetops to be Turk, Jew, or 
Infidel, there is little merit in sincerity, and little temp- 
tation to be false. The chances are enormously in 
favour of a conversion to the Catholic Church being 
thoroughly sincere. So too with confession; what 
possible reason has a man for going to confess his sins 
week after week, except that he is manfully struggling 
with a bad habit, and determined by the grace of God 
to overcome it? I am supposing that he has diligently 
prepared himself. He has in the quiet of his solitude 
put himself face to face with God. He has heartily 
detested his sin before the crucifix and the Blessed 
Sacrament. He has resolved to die rather than commit 
it again. He has made up his mind to a humiliating 
confession to a fellow-creature, who may be weary of 
hearing the same tale, who may lose his temper and 
cast him off. I say that here is every guarantee for 
sincerity. Besides, there is nothing in theology to 



340 THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



forbid our believing that, in the confessional, previous 
to absolution, there are actual graces granted to the 
penitent, greater than at any other time or place. Are 
we not told that the act of contrition must be super- 
natural, and whence should a supernatural thing come 
except from heaven? I believe that there and then the 
Holy Spirit comes upon the poor sinner kneeling at the 
feet of the priest, and often intensifies his poor act of 
sorrow, so that his heart is filled with grief, and that at 
that moment he would rather suffer anything than 
commit the sin again. At all events, no one can prove 
that I am wrong, and it seems to me more in keeping 
with the character of God. 

It will be well to insist upon this, for it is a question 
which necessarily affects the conduct of a priest towards 
such sinners. If he considers that they most probably 
are insincere, if he doubts the validity of the absolution 
which he gives them, it will be impossible for him to 
be as willing to grant them the Holy Communion as I 
believe he should. I am not speaking of reckless and 
desperate sinners; there are few, indeed, of such who 
come to the tribunal of penance at all. I am contem- 
plating the case of a sinner who demonstrates his sin- 
cerity by coming regularly to confession, notwithstand- 
ing his habitual falls, and I wish to vindicate his right 
to the Blessed Sacrament, by showing that his subse- 
quent fall does not prevent his having a real, efficacious 
determination not to sin at the moment of absolution. 
Our imagination is excited by the number and the con- 
tinuance of his falls. We ask ourselves if a being who, 
after the most solemn promises, in a short time commits 
the same sin again, can by any possibility be sincere ? 
Does it not seem far more simple to say at once that he 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



341 



never was sincere ; by which I mean that, although he 
himself thought that he was resolved not to commit sin, 
yet, in point of fact, he really had never made up his 
mind to give up sin and to love God? Of course, if 
this view be taken, the consequence is that he cannot 
be absolved, and, consequently, cannot receive the Holy 
Communion. 

I cannot think that this is our Blessed Lord's will ; it 
certainly is not the way of the Church, as we have 
seen. Furthermore, the fact of our wonderfully com- 
plicated and mysterious nature cannot be resolved upon 
a theory such as this. Certainly, there are numberless 
instances where men give the most positive proofs of 
their sincerity at one moment, yet soon after apparently 
belie them. Who does not remember the story of the 
great man who had fallen a slave to the habit of opium 
eating? He was resolved to break his chains at any 
cost, and he hired men to stand at the door of every 
druggist's shop in Bristol, with orders forcibly to pre- 
vent his entrance when the fit of desire came on again. 
Was it possible to give greater proofs of real, efficacious 
sincerity than such strong measures as this ? A literary 
man, whose name was famous all over England for 
genius, gravity, and virtue, publishes his fatal propen- 
sity amongst the porters and cabmen of his native town, 
and risks his reputation in order to render his indul- 
gence, as he thought, impossible. Alas ! poor human 
nature ! when the imperious desire for opium comes on 
again, he repairs to the chemist's shop, threatens with 
an action for assault the very men whom he had paid 
to oppose his passage, and purchases the drug. He 
shelters himself under no sophistry, for he believes 
that this indulgence is criminal; yet health, reputation, 



342 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



virtue, religion, are powerless before the overmastering 
habit. What does all this prove but the mobility of 
the will ? We are men, not angels ; and a part of our 
condition as men is, that our will is subject to all man- 
ner of change. It would surely be most unphilosophi- 
cal to say that we do not really will a thing at one 
moment, because at another we will its contrary. Nei- 
ther let us complain of our nature ; if we are not fixed 
in good, like the seraphim, at least we are not eternally 
stereotyped in evil, like the demons. 

This, however, is not the whole account of the mat- 
ter; while, on the other hand, the will of the opium 
eater was variable, on the other hand, the habit to 
which he was subject was tending in him to become 
something fixed. This tendency, it is true, can never 
become irremediable on this side the grave, for it is 
ever absolutely in the power of the individual to over- 
come it by the grace of God ; yet it must be allowed 
that the habit must be taken into account, when we 
weigh the amount of criminality involved in the act. 
It is the most terrible punishment of sin that, by a law 
of our nature, each act of wickedness leaves an effect 
on our souls which predisposes us to another. It is the 
reward of innocence that a very great guarantee 
against any sin is the never having committed it ; while 
on the contrary, sin is punished by the fact that its 
repeated acts produce a fatal facility in guilt, which at 
last approaches to an impossibility of doing otherwise. 
While the wild beast within us has never tasted blood 
he is comparatively quiet, but when once he has im- 
brued his lips in it there arises a thirst which grows into 
a furious craving. All sin partakes of the nature of 
opium eating. 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



343 



Here, again, let us not accuse our nature or its God. 
The law of habit tells in favour of virtue as well as of 
vice. It enables us to be set in good as well as in evil. 
We acquire a dexterity in all that is good, so that we 
act well unconsciously, as a good musician plays beauti- 
ful music without an effort. Chastity, gentleness, and 
temperance become part of ourselves, instead of costing 
struggles beneath which, on the long run, our feeble 
nature would succumb. We need not murmur, then, if 
the same law takes effect upon us in the case of guilt, 
and if acts of sin as well as of virtue produce habits 
which become second nature. 

Woe to him who contravenes the laws of God's uni- 
verse! Woe to him who, by an act of mortal sin, 
makes self the centre instead of God ! In that very 
self there lies an infinite capacity of evil, beyond what 
we suspect, and when once the sleeping demon within 
us is aroused by an act of sin, we have unchained a 
power the result of which none can prophesy. I am 
not going into the philosophy of habits ; we need only 
look at facts. Take the case of a passion for drink. 
Who has not known instances of men who would give 
anything to get rid of the habit, and yet humanly 
speaking, cannot? A man knows himself to be on the 
high road to ruin; health, reputation, employment, all 
are going ; wife and children, nay, he himself, are starv- 
ing. He has had delirium tremens, and is threatened 
with it again. He knows that all hell will soon be 
visibly about his bed. I believe that man when he 
says that he would give the wide world to free himself 
from the horrid slavery of drunkenness. I believe him 
even when he says that he is unable to do without 
drink. He has created within himself an imperative 



344 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



craving, a preternatural void, boundless, and insatiable. 
There are times when he is willing to immolate all that 
he holds dearest on earth on the altar of this terrible 
self. Like every other sinner, he has been expending 
his own life, burning away his powers of body and 
soul, and when the artificial excitement is gone, then 
there come on the awful tedium and the infinite ennui 
which make life intolerable, till the passion is satisfied 
again. His physical organization helps to rivet his 
chains; he has been overtasking and overexerting some 
of his organs, and he wants external galvanic shocks 
and artificial fires to rouse them. Nay, they suck up 
vital power from other portions of his frame, so that 
all his powers go into commission to some set of organs, 
which cry out for incessant satisfaction, and domineer 
over the whole. Miserable power that we have to spoil 
our own being ! It is over-excitement which kills us, 
says a wise physician. It is excitement rather than the 
love of sin which leads us to do wrong, says the 
moralist. Men would do anything to break the dull 
monotony of life; then sin once indulged grows into a 
passion, and passion into a habit, and they are slaves. 
The whole equilibrium of their being is destroyed; 
they become an incarnation of one vice. They have 
made themselves after their own image, and they must 
take the consequences. 

I know nothing more dreadful than the power of 
habit; yet, there are two sides to the question. Let us 
observe that this law of our nature takes effect inde- 
pendently of our will. Each act, of course, by which 
the habit is formed, is wilful; but the habit itself, that 
is, the facility of sinning which is increased by the 
individual act, exists whether we will or no. No one 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



345 



wishes to contract this evil quality, which superinduces 
a sort of propension to sin; and which approaches to 
becoming a necessity. Men wish to enjoy themselves 
moderately, not to be the slaves of sin. The habit 
comes on, nay, what is more to the purpose, it remains 
in spite of them. It is, therefore, perfectly conceivable 
that a man may have repented of his acts of sin, may 
have turned to God, and yet the habit, that is, the pro- 
pension to sin, may remain. Let us never forget that, 
theologically speaking, the habit of sin is not habitual 
sin. Let us take, for instance, De Lugo's view of the 
matter.* Habitual sin is that effect of mortal sin, by 
which we are permanently hateful to God till it is 
pardoned. The act is done and completely over; it 
has passed into things which are not; nevertheless, we 
are in a state of sin; there remains something in us 
which makes us to be, as long as it lasts, detestable to 
God. Now, De Lugo expressly denies that this some- 
thing is a vicious habit. The act may have been a 
single, isolated act, and have produced no vicious 
habit ; yet, for all that, we have contracted the stain of 
habitual sin. " Even supposing," he argues, Ct the pro- 
duction of the habit were in some way prevented, yet 
the man would still be a sinner. Again, when habitual 
sin is taken away (by forgiveness), generally speaking 
vicious habits still remain in the (pardoned) sinner. Or 
else the vicious habit may cease, and be cured by acts 
of the contrary virtue ; but such virtuous acts cannot 
take away habitual sin." It is perfectly clear, then, 
that the propension to sin is not incompatible with a 
state of grace; it can co-exist, therefore, with a true 

* De Lugo. De Psen. Disp. vii, sect. 1. 



346 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



attrition, with a firm purpose of amendment; in a word, 
with sincerity. 

Now, this is most important for our purpose. It fol- 
lows from all this that a man may, at the moment of abso- 
lution, have a most firm purpose never to fall again, and 
yet the overmastering passion may recur, and he may 
again commit the same sin. It follows again that there 
are two sorts of sinners under the influence of guilty 
habits ; the one sort have not in any sense been con- 
verted, and have no real will to get rid of the bad 
habit. The other sort really detest sin, and take mea- 
sures to prevent it, yet they fall because the habit is not 
yet rooted out. The two cases are evidently utterly 
different. The one falls into sin passively, under the 
power of habit, without a struggle ; the other only falls 
after a long combat, rises again at once, and is still re- 
solved in spite of all to overcome the hateful propensity. 
In the former case the act of sin is intensified by the 
headlong violence of the propension; and consequently 
its guilt is increased. In the latter the habit diminishes 
the voluntariness of the act, and therefore the guilt is 
lessened by it.* Very rarely, indeed, does the obstinate 
sinner frequent the tribunal of penance, while the 
sinner who hates the habit, as we are supposing, goes to 
confession every week. Even when both confess their 
sins, there are notable differences. The sinner who is 
sincere carefully avoids all occasions of temptation, fol- 
lows diligently all the counsels which are given him, 
and the remedies prescribed, however painful ; is con- 
stant about his devotions, and prepares himself with 

* Peccatum non aggravatur imo videtur minus grave propter 
consuetudinem et habitum praecedentem. De Lugo. Disp. xvi, 
sect. 4, 7- 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



347 



care for the sacraments. The characteristics of the 
other may be summed up in one word — carelessness. 
Is it not plain that these two sinners are the antipodes 
the one of the other, and must be treated in a perfectly 
different manner? 

We are only concerned with the sinner who is in 
earnest. With respect to him, we have arrived at 
many truths from what has been said. Notwithstand- 
ing the fact that the habit or propension still remains 
within him, and his consequent liability to fall into sin, 
he is most probably in the grace of God after absolu- 
tion; for, on the one hand, that habit is perfectly 
distinct from habitual sin, and does not interfere with 
his being in God's favour; and, on the other, his whole 
behaviour, his coming to confession, his subsequent 
struggle, are all arguments to prove that he was in 
earnest at the time. Then, again, the existence of the 
propension accounts for what otherwise tells so much 
against him — his constant falls. He has liberty enough, 
no doubt, for sin, yet the awfulness of temptation at 
the time of his falls must be taken into account. It 
is not God's way to cure a sinner of the kind that we 
are contemplating all at once. He must fight his way 
back again to peace. Meanwhile, during the awful 
struggle, God watches over his poor creature with the 
tenderness of a mother, and the priest, who stands in 
His place, must second His designs. In no case has he 
more need to be Christ-like. His heart must be full of 
compassion, his demeanour of kindness. Not a word of 
reproach or impatience must pass his lips. The sinner, 
above all, requires encouragement; he has need of all 
his faith to believe that God still loves him, and that 
in spite of the fiendlike power of temptation and of 



348 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



the frequency of his falls, he will infallibly be cured of 
the fearful habit. 

On these principles, it is easy to answer the question 
proposed as to the frequency of communion to be 
accorded to sinners. The priest must first carefully 
ascertain to which of the two classes of habitual sinners 
the penitent belongs. It would be a fatal error to 
apply to the careless sinner the rules only laid down for 
the penitent who is in earnest. An indiscriminate 
application of frequent communion to all those who 
are involved in habits of sin would lead to dreadful 
illusions and to monstrous falls. But when once the 
confessor has satisfied himself of the sincerity of the 
penitent, then let him act boldly. Frequent commu- 
nion in such a case is, on the long run, a specific. 
Here, above all, is to be applied the rule which has 
been laid down, that the only limit is the good of the 
penitent. 

In support of this view, let me quote a recent author 
who deserves to be consulted in all questions connected 
with communion. "It seems to me that there may be 
cases in which the spiritual good of the sinner requires 
that he should be allowed, for a time at least, to com- 
municate frequently, in proportion to his needs, as soon 
as his dispositions are such as to warrant his being ab- 
solved. Anions these cases I would instance states of 
great temptation, and of habits of sin not yet entire^ 
rooted out. Thus, when a confessor foresees that a 
sinner capable of absolution will fall again from the 
violence of temptation, unless he has fresh grace soon 
given to him, he may allow him for a time to communi- 
cate once every two or three days, or even oftener, if 
necessary. For it is certain that the Holy Eucharist 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



349 



represses movements of the flesh more than the other 
sacraments. We know by experience, says Cardinal 
Toletus, that many Christians, who were a prey to 
numberless crimes and vices, have been so thoroughly 
converted by frequent communion, that during the rest 
of their lives they have never, or hardly ever, com- 
mitted another grave sin. It is for this reason that the 
Fathers of the Church call the august sacrament of the 
Eucharist a divine alchemy, a burning transformation, 
where the penitent soul is cured of bad habits, is puri- 
fied and sanctified more and more, is gradually made 
all divine, and is changed into the likeness of God. 
Saint Alphonso Liguori tells us of a fact which bears 
upon this point. A nobleman was so miserably enslaved 
by a terrible habit of sin that he despaired of ever being 
able to overcome it. His confessor once asked him if 
he had ever fallen on the day of his communion? On 
his answering that he never had, he made him receive 
the Blessed Sacrament every day for several weeks, 
and in a short time he was completely freed from this 
horrible vice." 

We have high authority, therefore, for fearlessly 
using the Blessed Sacrament as a remedy for sin. We, 
none of us, have sufficient faith in the opus operation of 
the sacraments. You above all, priests, monks, and 
spouses of Christ, to whom He has entrusted the glo- 
rious mission of reforming souls lost in sin, do not for- 
get that Jesus is above all the Good Shepherd in the 
Holy Communion. An institution more dear to the 
Sacred Heart than a reformatory of any kind it is not 
easy to imagine. Yet, in proportion to its dignity, is 

* " Principes de direction pour la Communion Frequente," p. 162. 



350 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



the fearful difficulty of your mission. Sickly senti- 
mentality invests the sinner at a distance with the 
attributes of a Magdalene, but if there be any element 
of romance in the attraction felt towards the sinner, 
and in the vocation of those who have to deal with 
them, how soon it fades away before the reality. Even 
when want, and pain, and hunger have long since cured 
the miserable beings of the positive taste for a life of 
wickedness, yet the whole character is often utterly 
spoiled and destroyed. What is there left to work 
upon ? The soul that looks out of the hard, stony eye, 
is lost to all sense of shame and degradation. There is 
an animal love of ease and hatred of work. The reck- 
less outcasts from society turn fiercely round upon 
their best friends as though they were their gaolers. 
Who can bind down to regularity the wild, restless 
creatures, and reduce to rule the will which has been 
accustomed to follow every external impulse? Or, 
rather, all will has gone, and has given place to the 
most irrational caprice. When you think you are sure 
of them, in times of calmest seeming a breath will 
raise a tempest of fiendlike passion, or obstinate sulki- 
ness, and they who appeared but just now real peni- 
tents all at once show the rage or the sullenness of a 
captive beast. Deep down in their hearts there lie the 
memories of unutterable things, which will not rest, 
and ever and anon rise up to taunt them and drive 
them to madness, while the body itself craves the ex- 
citement of drink, and feels all the consequent restless- 
ness of the privation. What can be done with a being 
so spoiled as that? What motive can you put before 
those whose feelings have lost all delicacy, who take all 
charity as a right, who are impervious to gratitude, and 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



351 



so wrapped in present fancied pleasures or dislikes as 
to forget that the past was a hell on earth, and to be 
ever recklessly ready to plunge into it again ? All the 
beauty of human nature is trodden out of them, while 
sin with its dreadful chemistry has burned itself into 
their souls in characters of fire. Above all, they are 
false down to the very heart's core. Who can pene- 
trate down beneath the leprous crust of insincerity, and 
make them children again ? Oh ! how quickly all sen- 
timentality vanishes before such an apparition as that. 
What a temptation to take the miserable creatures at 
their word and bid them begone, when in some gust of 
absurd passion they ask to go back into the waste howl- 
ing wilderness which awaits them outside the gates of 
the monastery ! How hard not to treat them as parts 
of a great flock from which a tainted sheep must be 
expelled lest it infect the whole ! It is difficult not to 
become wooden, to act by invariable rules, and to sacri- 
fice all to organization and discipline. There is no 
remedy for this tendency but the realization of the 
dignity of the individual soul. Yes, it too has been 
redeemed by the Precious Blood. Jesus loves even 
such a one unutterably. That soul is to be respected 
and treated with reverence, to be studied and cared for 
I individually. The Spouse of Christ must not shrink 
from contact with such a being ; she must bear with 
impertinence, brutal rudeness, and irrational caprice. 
She must treat such a one with separate kindness, and 
win back the proud soul with the sweetness of Christ- 
like humility. God forbid that the penitent should be 
allowed to go, for to quit the convent is to return to 
hell, while the sinner who remains within its walls is at 
least within reach of the Precious Blood. 



352 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



Here, then, is our remedy for what is otherwise 
desperate ; an implicit trust in the action of the sacra- 
ments. Let them have free course and be glorified. 
There must be no restrictions on their number; they 
must be no part of convent police or discipline. There 
need be no nervous fear of disrespect in allowing crea- 
tures still so corrupt to approach Jesus. He will accept 
the minimum of dispositions, provided the bare essen- 
tials are there. He will be indulgent to outbursts of 
temper, to sallies of caprice, in one whose efforts to be 
ordinarily good require struggles which in others 
would be almost heroic. It is in such cases as these 
that we must remember the supernaturalness of the 
sacraments. I do not overlook the natural effects of 
kindness. The very opening of the heart to a fellow- 
creature is the shivering of pride, the destruction of 
that terrible reserve in which the soul had wrapt itself 
up, and bade a sullen defiance to God and to the 
human race. It is the rolling away of the stone from 
the sepulchre ; a creature can do that ; but it wants the 
voice of God to recall to life the mass of corruption 
which was once a human being. O Jesus ! her Creator, 
come forth with Thine Almighty power, for there is a 
work which Thou alone canst do. Here is a corruption 
fouler than that which lay in the rocky tomb, a dead 
soul, unburied and tainting the air, walking the earth, 
and possessing the horrible vitality of infection. Oh ! 
see now Jesus loved her; He has wept tears of blood 
over her misery, and now He delegates one to pour 
His Precious Blood over her, and in His name to resus- 
citate her. And hardly has she been restored to life 
when He comes in person from the tabernacle to 
assure her of His love, to calm the fierceness of her 



THE COMMUNION OF SINNERS. 



353 



passions, and to touch within her the very fountains of 
her affections, and bid them flow out afresh towards her 
God. The hard heart which had stiffened into a fierce 
hatred of all living things can feel again the joy of 
love. 

Such is the mode of operation of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, and such are the miracles which it works. The 
moment that our dispositions are sufficient to remove 
an obstacle, then there flow down upon us graces to 
which they were utterly inadequate. They create new 
dispositions which did not exist before. It is for this 
reason that all are invited to come, the corrupt to 
receive incorruption, the unclean to receive purity, the 
passionate to receive meekness. They need not wait to 
have formed habits of purity and meekness. Let them 
come as they are, with only the will to be pure and 
meek. And because we have still the wretched power 
to destroy the effect of the Blessed Sacrament when 
temptation comes, because the seven devils may return, 
for this reason the Holy Communion must be rei- 
terated. Fear not, poor child ! if you have only 
struggled in the meantime, each communion has made 
you better, and each fall leaves you less and less weak, 
till at last the habit of virtue is established, and you fall 
no more. 

Such is the ever-blessed instrument which God has 
put into our hands for the reformation of a sinner. I 
do not, of course, for a moment deny the absolute 
necessity of natural means to form habits of virtue. 
There must be patient, unremitting kindness, and an 
imperturbable patient sweetness. These are indis- 
pensable conditions of success; but the real cause is 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. 

2 A 



354 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 

We read much in spiritual books of the last century of 
a large and troublesome class of Christians, ladies 
especially, who attempted to unite together God and the 
world. The discourses of Massillon and Bourdaloue are 
filled with declamations against the monstrous union. 
In reading the memoirs of a famous time, its festivities, 
and its follies, it suddenly strikes us, that all those 
brilliant beings were Catholics. Amidst accounts of 
balls and theatres we come across sermons of Bossuet, 
spiritual letters of Fenelon, visits to the Carmelites of 
the Rue St. Jacques, benedictions and communions. It 
is a comfort to think that God was represented there ; 
that amidst their follies and their sins they said their 
prayers before a crucifix, they knelt in confessionals, 
and received the Viaticum when they died. Yet, when 
we come to gather from the sarcasms of a truculent 
Guillore, and even from the milder warnings of Surin, 
that some of these worldly women laid claim to great 
piety and were frequent communicants, we must con- 
fess that a series of unpleasant questions rises up in our 
minds. These ladies, we will suppose, were models of 
propriety, yet there are in scripture most uncomfort- 
able denunciations against the world, even as distin- 
guished from the flesh or the devil. Or can we by any 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



353 



stretch of Christian charity exempt Parisian society from 
being "the world?" I think not; and if not, on what 
principle can those who are of it be frequent communi- 
cants? Is a course of balls, operas, and all that is 
involved in a life in the world, compatible with com- 
municating twice or three times a week? Is daily 
communion (for such things have been) to be allowed to 
a lady who lives in such a round of gaiety ? Is the 
nocturnal ball a fit preparation for the morning's com- 
munion ? 

All these questions are perfectly distinct from any 
which we have treated as yet, and require an answer. 
Such things are not quite matters of history. Human 
nature is not changed since the time of Louis XIV, and 
probably we should find the same heart beating beneath 
silks and satins in a ball-room at Paris, Vienna, or 
Brussels in the nineteenth century, as at Versailles and 
Marly in the first days of their splendour. There must 
always be the same tendency in mankind to enjoy both 
God and the world. I am utterly ignorant of the 
fashionable world in London, and I am quite prepared to 
suppose that such anomalies do not exist there. Without, 
however, pretending to any superhuman sagacity, we 
may safely affirm that the time is not far distant when 
such may be the case. There is no likelihood that the 
work of conversion amongst the higher classes should 
cease; the number of Catholics, therefore, brought into 
direct contact with the world must necessarily increase. 
The world, which is of no religion, and piques itself 
upon its liberality, will receive them with open arms. 
We believe, then, that the question is at present specula- 
tive ; it may, however, soon become, practical. Let us 
put it then plainly in a concrete shape, and ask whether 



356 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



the gaieties of a London season are compatible with fre- 
quent communion? 

If a Pagan were to take up the New Testament by- 
chance, he would certainly be puzzled by what is said 
there about the world. He might even fancy that there 
was some inconsistency in it. On the one hand, with 
what yearning love and tenderness is it spoken of! 
" God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten 
Son." " God sent not His Son into the world to judge 
the world, but that the world may be saved by Him." 
Our very hearts leap within us for joy when we hear Jesus 
call Himself Salvator mundi, Lux mundi — the Saviour 
of the world, the Light of the world. O blessed Jesus ! 
why is Thy curse upon that world of Thine deep in pro- 
portion to the depth of Thy love for it. Why on the 
eve of Thy death except it from Thy prayer? Why 
art Thou so tender and so kind to sinners, so hopeful to 
the end of their conversion, while, as for the world, Thou 
dost treat it as Thy desperate enemy, as though there 
was a fatality upon it which compelled it to hate Thee 
and Thine? 

The apostles take up the anathemas of Jesus. St. 
James says to us, " know you not that the friendship of 
this world is the enemy of God. Whosoever, therefore, 
will be a friend of this world, becometh an enemy of 
God." The apostle of love is the most solemn in his 
warnings: " Love not the world, nor the things which 
are in the world. If any man love the world, the charity 
of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world 
is the concupiscence of the flesh, and the concupiscence 
of the eyes, and the pride of life, which is not of the 
Father, but is of the world." St. Paul is not less ener- 
getic. He looks upon the world as under the power of 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



357 



the evil one, for he speaks of " walking according to the 
course of the world, and according to the prince of the 
power of the air. He considers that the very purpose 
for which Christ died was " to deliver us from this pre- 
sent wicked world." Can anything be more evident than 
that it is a first principle of Christianity, that the world is 
thoroughly and utterly bad? Yet, how careful is the 
same apostle, St. Paul, to remind the Christians that they 
still have duties in and for this world. He modifies one 
of his rules expressly, because if they followed it literally 
it would be tantamount to quitting the world.* He 
legislates for the behaviour of Christians at a banquet 
given by a heathen, taking it for granted that Christians 
were to mix with the great world. Evidently he who 
wished us to be dead and crucified to the world did not 
intend us to cease to be gentlemen, or to set the laws of 
society at defiance. 

Christian dogma presents the same twofold view of 
the world and our relations to it. The history of the 
Church has been a life-long struggle with Manicheism 
in every possible shape. She has ever hated the doc- 
trine, that matter is intrinsically bad. Deep as is the 
corruption of original sin, she has anathematized the 
Lutheran doctrine, that the soul has become substantially 
evil through the fall. She consecrates human joys, and 
respects all the legitimate affections of the human heart. 
She teaches that marriage has been erected into a sacra- 
ment. She burns incense before the body of a Chris- 
tian even when the soul has departed from it. Nothing 
was ever so un-Puritanical as the Church. She abhors 
the gloom of a Presbyterian Sabbath. Her holidays are 
days of universal brightness. No joy is excessive if it 
* 1 Cor., v, 10. 1 Cor., x, 27. 



358 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



be not profligate ; no beauty comes amiss to her, pro- 
vided it be chaste. She gives her blessing upon all that 
is lovely- The walls of her churches glow w r ith the 
colours of the Italian painter, and Spanish maidens 
dance before the Blessed Sacrament. Yet, with all this 
largeness of heart, this detestation of unnatural gloom, 
the ritual of the Church seems to imply that a blight 
and a curse have passed upon creation. The very bless- 
ing which she gives to our dwelling-places and our 
fields, and to the choicest fruits of the earth, assumes 
the appearance of an exorcism. She will not use the 
oil, and the balsam, and the salt, nor the precious gums 
for incense, nor even the pure, bright water, till the 
cross has signed and purified them ; as though the 
breath of the evil One had passed over all creation, and 
the whole earth required redemption. It is a principle 
of Christianity that the world is bad, and that worldli- 
ness is sinful. Riches are spoken of as a positive misfor- 
tune, while purple, fine linen, and feasting every day are 
the highroad to everlasting fire. 

It is evident that Christianity has a most peculiar 
view of the external world. It looks upon it neither 
with the jaundiced eye of the Puritan nor with the 
licentious gaze of the Pagan. Volumes might be written 
upon it, but for our purpose it will be sufficient to say 
that earthly goods of whatever kind, riches, pleasure, 
honour, are not looked upon as evil in themselves, but 
as tending to produce in the mind a certain positive 
wickedness called worldliness. This worldliness is only 
not a sin, because it is rather a state than an act, or if 
you will, it is a name for an attitude of the soul towards 
God which is sinful. 

Christianity has not so much introduced a new 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



359 



system of morals as altered the whole point of view in 
which men looked upon life and earthly goods. It 
holds, as a first principle, that God is to be loved above 
all things, in such a sense that, if a creature apprecia- 
tively loves any created thing more than God, he com- 
mits a mortal sin. Of course, this, like every other 
mortal sin, requires, at least, the possibility of adver- 
tence. For this reason, in a nature so carried away by 
its emotions as ours, it is conceivable that, at a given 
time, the soul might be so fixed on a lawful object of 
affection, that it should love it more than God, and yet 
be unconscious of its want of charity. When, how- 
ever, the affection for an earthly object, or pursuit for a 
long time together so engrosses the soul, as to superin- 
duce an habitual neglect of God, and a continued omis- 
sion of necessary duties, then it is very difficult for the 
soul to be unconscious of its violation of the first com- 
mandment, or, if it is unconscious, not to be answerable 
to God for the hardness of heart which prevents its actual 
advertence. It follows from this, that to adhere with 
the whole force of the will to any earthly thing what- 
soever, however innocent, is sinful. God is the only 
legitimate, ultimate end of all His creatures. To be 
their final end is as much one of His attributes as 
Mercy or Infinity, so that to place the end of our being 
elsewhere than in God, is to deprive Him in our minds 
of one of His prerogatives. This one principle changes 
our whole mode of viewing the earth and all that be- 
longs to it. It transposes the Christian's stand-point 
from this world to the next. Wealth, pleasure, power, 
honour, assume a totally different aspect when it is 
unlawful to pursue them for their own sake without 
reference to God. Let us clearly master this idea 



360 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



We will suppose a merchant entirely engrossed in the 
acquisition of riches. No one will say that to amass 
wealth is in any way sinful. It has never come 
before him to do anything dishonest in order to 
increase his property, and he has never formed an 
intention of doing so. Nevertheless, if his heart is 
so fixed on gain that his affection for it is greater 
than the amount of his love for God, even though 
he has formed explicitly no design of acting disho- 
nestly, he falls at once out of a state of grace. Let 
him but elicit from his will an act, by which he virtu- 
ally appreciates riches more than God, that act of pre- 
ferring a creature to God, if accompanied with suffi- 
cient advertence, is enough of itself to constitute a 
mortal sin. God sees his heart, and if, through the 
overwhelming pursuit of sin, the amount of its love 
for Himself is overbalanced by the amount of its love 
for riches, that man, when adequately conscious of his 
state, is in mortal sin, and if he died would be lost for 
ever. The first commandment is as binding as the 
seventh, and a man who does not love God above all 
things is as guilty as the actual swindler or the thief. 
The case is precisely the same with all earthly goods 
whatever; science, literary fame, advancement in 
life, pleasure, ease, beauty, success of all kinds, whether 
by the charms of body or of mind, all these are of the 
earth earthly; and if any one of them is appreciated 
by us not only to the exclusion of God, but more than 
God, we are positively committing sin. The Chris- 
tian's heart must be in paradise, not here below. He 
must be prepared by God's grace to give up anything 
on earth rather than sacrifice his hopes of heaven. 
This is not a counsel of perfection, but an indispensable 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 361 



duty. His final end must be to see God in the invisible 
world, not ai^thing in the world of sight. 

If any one had stated this doctrine to a heathen, he 
would have been treated as a madman. A Pagan 
would have perfectly understood that he must not 
injure his fellow-men, that he must not pursue pleasure 
to such an extent as to harm his body or to stain 
his mind ; but he would have stared at you as a portent 
if you had announced to him that he must lay a 
restraint upon himself, because it is a duty for a man 
to reserve his affections for anything beyond the grave- 
If you would be great, fix your heart on some earthly 
object, power, science, country; but if only it be high 
and honourable, then pursue it with the full swing of 
all your powers of body and soul; such would be 
heathen ethics at their very best. The very idea of its 
being wrong to love the world would never enter into 
their minds. The word was not in their vocabulary, 
nor the idea in their intellect. They might have 
arrived at the notion that the unrestrained indulgence 
of the flesh is wrong; some of them believed in an evil 
principle, in the powers of darkness, in Titans fighting 
against gods ; but before the shadow of the Cross fell 
upon the earth no one amongst them imagined that 
worldliness was sinful. It is an exclusively Christian 
principle, because the Bible alone has expressly taught 
it to be a duty to love God above all things, and a sin 
to love anything more than God. 

It is easy for us to understand now the meaning of 
worldliness. It is a sin against our Lord's chief and 
first commandment, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God, with all thy heart, with all thy mind, and with all 
thy strength." The soul, through culpable negligence, 



362 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



is so utterly engrossed with earthly objects that God 
has sunk in the balance of its estimation. This is why 
our Lord hates it so much. Everything depends upon 
the first principle upon which our actions proceed ; the 
ultimate end of our thoughts, words, and deeds. It 
seldom rises to our lips, or appears on the surface, but 
it is quietly taken for granted ; it imbues and pene- 
trates all our being. With a worldly man it is the 
world, witn a Christian it is God. Hence all is twisted 
and distorted by worldliness. No one thing is right 
because the whole point of view is wrong. The worldly 
man tacitly assumes that the world is paramount, and 
thus without any overt act, God has noiselessly lapsed 
into the second place. Alas ! when such is the case, 
God is nowhere. Heaven help the man then. First 
principles are gone, what hope is there of recovery? 
The disease is structural and organic. The very fever 
of passion is less dangerous than the slow atrophy of 
worldliness. The salt has lost its savour, wherewith 
shall it be salted? The eye is dark; no wonder if the 
whole being is plunged in outer darkness. 

For this reason, also, our Lord always speaks more 
hopefully of the publican and the sinner than of the 
Pharisee, the impersonation of the then respectable, 
(oh, that the words should ever be found together !) 
religious world. Poor children of sin ! from the touch 
of whose very garments the daughters of the world 
would shrink as a pollution, in the depths of your 
degradation, you have still one element of conversion, 
that you are conscious of it. But there are moral 
leprosies more hideous in the sight of God than yours, 
because more irreclaimable and more thorough. There 
is nothing in worldliness to alarm the conscience, 



THK COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



363 



because it is quite consistent with propriety. Its cha- 
racteristic, as distinguished from the flesh and the devil, 
is the being engrossed with some worldly object, which 
is not openly vicious, to the prejudice of God. There 
has been no terrible moment of awful rupture with 
God by an external act of sin. God has been quietly 
extruded from the soul by the growth of love for some- 
thing else rather than directly expelled. There has 
been no catastrophe, no crash or fearful fall, to alarm 
virtue and astonish respectability. The love of God 
has died an easy natural death without a struggle or 
an agony. 

I think I hear it said : is it possible that such things 
can be? If worldliness be the absence of God's love, 
the gradual, silent lowering of religion within us till it 
is not sufficient to enable us to elicit an act of sufficient 
sorrow for sin, then, of course, communion is out of the 
question. But, is there not a great deal of rhetoric 
in all this? Is it not an exaggeration to assign such 
deadly effects to a plunge into a London or a Paris 
season? Surely some of us are meant by God to be in 
the world, and is it not possible to be in the world 
without being of it? May not a person be worldly 
without losing the grace of God? Here are a number 
of questions which, I allow, require an answer. I even 
allow that there is some truth in what they imply ; and 
we will try to extract it from the great falsehood, and 
to exhibit them separately. 

It is perfectly true to say that many are meant by God 
to be in the world. Truism as it is, it is necessary to 
dwell upon it. Many married persons, whether from 
education or from some other reason which I cannot 
tell, have an uneasy kind of feeling, as though the 



364 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



cloister was the normal state of Christians, and life else- 
where a sort of Christianity on sufferance, tolerated on 
account of the hardness of our hearts; and only not bad 
without being positively good. Heaven forbid that we 
should think thus of the sanctities of home. Avocation 
to the cloister is the exception. The majority of man- 
kind have a positive vocation from God to spend their 
lives out of religion, and would be out of place in it. 
Christianity has ennobled the domestic life, and conse- 
crated all its affections. 

It is also perfectly true to say that it is possible to be 
in the world and not to be of it. In order, however, 
for this assertion to be of any avail against what I have 
said, it would be necessary to make out this possibility 
in the case of those who give themselves up body and 
soul to the fashionable world. Let us see how far it can 
be made out. 

There is a strange tendency in human nature to create 
worlds for itself. What we mean by a world is an all- 
in-all, some particular pursuit, calling, or state, which be- 
comes to us the universe. The soul of man cannot take 
in the whole earth; whatever he does, has, therefore, a 
tendency to absorb and engross him as though nothing 
else existed. Thus, the great world comes to be divided 
into a number of smaller ones, sphere within sphere, the 
inhabitants of one being often almost as little to those 
of another as though they lived in different planets. 
Thus, we have the literary, the scientific, the political, 
and the mercantile world. Each trade, each locality, 
each street, square, and lane, tends to be a little world. 
Thus does our very language bear witness to the fact that 
the heart of man is ever apt to be perfectly absorbed by 
something which becomes evervthinsj to him, and shuts 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



365 



out everything else. His horizon is essentially bounded. 
Beyond a certain point a sort of mental fog comes over 
him, and shuts out not only God's daylight, but even the 
other portions of the universe here below. Even the 
holiest natural things have this tendency. Home itself 
may thus become a little world. Especially in England, 
where domestic affections are so strong, where every 
man's house is his castle, and every one strives to be in- 
dependent, and to concentrate under his own roof all 
that he can possibly want, there is a great danger lest 
the family should become the universe. A special 
kind of worldliness comes on, a certain family selfish- 
ness, by which the soul becomes so engrossed in the 
narrow circle of home that God Himself stands in 
danger of being excluded. 

Whilst, however, anything whatsoever may be turned 
into a world, it must be owned that some things are 
more intrinsically worldly than others ; that is, they have 
a far greater tendency to exclude God than others; and, 
of all others, the most worldly is the fashionable world. 
All other things have something in them which can be 
turned to God. All involve some work, some duty, 
some self-sacrifice. At the very worst they want but 
God to penetrate them in order to be in their place. A 
wife can never love her husband and children too well, 
provided she loves God above all. But how can God 
enter into a mode of life of which pleasure is the sole 
occupation, the ultimate end ? It is like a proximate 
occasion of sin, it must be abandoned; it cannot be 
turned to God. The meekest of saints has told us that 
balls are to be enjoyed as we eat mushrooms, few in num- 
ber and far between ; what would he have said if these 
mushrooms became the staple of food, and life is turned 



366 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY 

into a long, wild dance ? No one but a Puritan ever 
said that dancing was wrong, or concerts offensive to 
God, or even the theatre a mortal sin ; but it is the 
whole mode of life that is hopelessly, desperately wrong. 
It is positively sinful to make pleasure the end of life. 
It is sinful, because it absorbs the soul, and it tends in- 
evitably to forgetfulness of God. Yes, thank Heaven, 
it is possible to be in the world and not to be of it ; but 
it is absurd to say that one is not worldly who plunges 
into all the gaieties of Paris or London, who enjoys and 
is so engrossed with them as practically to forget the 
sense of duty. As well tell me that concupiscence is 
not the flesh, or witchcraft the devil, as that the London 
season is not the world. How, then, can he not be 
worldly, who is so far engrossed in it as to neglect his 
duty to God? 

Nor is it only because God is forgotten that world- 
liness is wrong. As might be expected, the whole 
character is spoiled ; and this is a thing to be peculiarly 
observed. Many are deceived by the fact that world- 
lmess is not mentioned among the seven deadly sins. 
No Garden of the Soul reckons it among the black 
catalogue on which we examine our consciences. No 
one dreams of accusing himself of worldliness, yet it is 
part of Christian ethics to consider it as awfully wrong. 
How is this? We might at once answer the question 
by saying that worldliness is only contrary to perfec- 
tion ; and as no one accuses himself of not going on to 
perfection, so no one dreams of making it a matter of 
confession that he is worldly. Yet, after all, is this 
answer satisfactory? Surely, a thing which is classed 
with the flesh and the devil, a thing anathematized by 
our Lord, cannot be a simple imperfection. There are 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 367 

certain faults which are not, strictly speaking, sins, but 
which run through a whole character, and are more 
terrible sources of sin than even sinful passions. Sel- 
fishness, for instance, is not a special sin forbidden by 
any of the ten commandments. It is a tone of mind, 
a spirit, or as the old Greeks would have called it, an 
ethos, which imbues and penetrates the whole being. 
The uppermost thought in the mind, the foremost 
image in the imagination, is this pitiful self. There it 
looms large, portentous, engrossing, filling the whole 
field of vision, blotting out God and the universe. The 
consequence is that though not forbidden by any one 
commandment, it either breaks them all, or at least is 
only accidently withheld from breaking them. When 
the selfish man has to deliberate on any course of 
action, the shape in which intuitively it comes before 
him is, " how will this affect self?" This is the main- 
spring of his whole being, the ultimate end of all his 
actions. It is to him what God is to a Christian. 

Precisely so it is with the worldly. When a saint 
would say to himself, on forming a resolution, " what 
will be most pleasing to our Lord, when an honest, 
God-fearing Christian would say, u what is God's law?'' 
a worldly man's first question is, u what does the world 
allow in this case ?" So much has this become a first 
principle that he tacitly, unconsciously assumes it. It 
has been incorporated in his being ; it is a part of him- 
self. Now, what does the world allow? Every thing 
which is not dishonourable; and what is dishonourable? 
nothing which it allows. In other words, it has sub- 
stituted its own code of morals for the Christian reli- 
gion. It has dethroned God, and set itself in His place. 
It is wonderful how coolly this is done. The world 



368 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



quietly assumes that, of course, it is paramount. The 
world to come is shelved, and the world actual reigns 
in its stead. God says, u Thou shalt not kill." The 
world's commandment runs thus, " Thou shalt w T ash 
away dishonour in blood." On Sunday men hear that 
hardly shall a rich man enter the kingdom of heaven. 
On the six days of the week their whole soul is simply 
engrossed in one single thing, the accumulation of 
wealth by every possible means that the world permits, 
without the slightest reference to the law of God. In 
a word, the world, that is, human society, has set up a 
whole code of morals, at the basis of which lies the 
assumption, that it is the standard of morality, not God. 

This explains to us many things which are to our 
purpose. It shows us why worldliness, without being 
reckoned amongst positive sins, is so productive of sin. 
It is the tone of mind caught from the world, and 
which tacitly assumes that human society is the stan- 
dard of right and wrong, just as selfishness takes it for 
granted practically, that self is to be consulted first in 
all things. The whole point of view is wrong, and if 
any thing at all is right, it is only accidentally. Again, 
it shows us why the fashionable world is especially 
and above all, the world. It is the quintessence of 
worldly society. There are the model men and women 
who set the tone in all things, whom others imitate, 
and among whom they fain would be numbered. 
There, as in a high court of appeal, are enshrined and 
consecrated the maxims of the world. As a tribunal 
of justice has its unwritten modes of proceeding and 
its established first principles, controverted by none, and 
taken for granted by all, so in this great world those 
axioms prevail which are assumed like the Gospel. 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 369 

We have seen that the first principles of the world are 
un-Christian and irreligious. The whole tone of con- 
versation is based upon them. There is a spirit in the 
air which whispers them. A miasma is inhaled from 
that world which penetrates and imbues the whole being. 
It gives out from itself an exhalation like the plague. 
It is morally impossible to avoid it. A man who 
abhors it may pass through it unscathed ; but I defy 
any one to love it, thoroughly to enjoy it, and to live 
entirely in it, without being more or less poisoned with 
its spirit, and thoroughly imbued with its maxims. 

We are now able to answer the plea, that it is possible 
to be in the world and yet not to be of it. It is possible, 
on one condition, that you hate it. There is no subject 
on which there are so many fallacies, so many ambiguities, 
as the world. Because the word is used in opposition to 
the cloister, you fancy that you can live in the world and 
be unworldly. It is only of the world in that sense that 
such a possibility can be predicated. But, if by the 
world you mean the great world, the multitude of men 
and women who make pleasure their one aim, and who 
live according to the world's morality, then I deny that 
you can be thoroughly in it and be unworldly. To fol- 
low the same mode of life is to be of them. Many urge 
in excuse that their position and even their parents force 
them into it. Of course, if such be the case, if this life 
in the midst of the world is quite involuntary, it ceases 
to be sinful. It is necessary, however, to ask one ques- 
tion, Do you enjoy it? Are you so far engrossed in the 
pursuits and objects of the world, such as pleasure, ad- 
miration, splendid alliances, high society, that they are 
practically the end of your life? Is God and the sense 
of duty thrown into the background? Is your exist- 

2 B 



370 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



ence made up of prayerless days and dissipated nights ? 
If this is the case, then the spirit of the world is upon 
you, and its poison has already taken effect. It is pos- 
sible to pass through it unhurt, but not possible for 
you, for it has hurt you already. As for one who is 
given up body and soul to pleasure, who spends days 
and nights in a series of balls, operas, concerts, one whose 
whole being is wrapped up in all this dissipation, for 
such an one to pretend to urge the possibility of being 
unworldly, is a simple absurdity. She is worldly, ipso 
facto. She is worldly simply because she lives in the 
world and she loves it. 

Let us now proceed to the other question : Is it pos- 
sible for a person to be worldly without losing the 
grace of God ? No one can doubt the possibility for a 
moment. Let us not, however, deceive ourselves. 
What have we laid down that worldliness is? We 
have given various descriptions of it. First, we have 
seen that worldliness is that state of the soul in which 
it is so absorbed by an earthly thing, not in itself sinful, 
that its love for God has either diminished or else 
ceased to be paramount. Secondly, we have described 
it to be that state of mind in which the spirit of the 
world has so sunk into a soul that its standard of 
morality is the world, not Christianity. These are two 
ways of looking upon the same idea; and of course, 
according to both views, the disease may have only 
made a partial progress, and may not be deadly. 
But the essential thing is, to see that it is a disease. 
To be worldly at all is to be offensive to God in some 
degree ; to be thoroughly worldly is to have lost the 
grace of God. Worldliness is not an imperfection ; it 
is a state of mind hateful to God, and certainly inducing 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



371 



many sins, and above all, it is a state of the horror of 
which we may not be aware. 

Let us return for a moment to dry theology, even at 
the risk of repeating ourselves. Supposing that the soul, 
by any conscious act, so adheres to a temporal good that 
it clings to it virtually more than it clings to God, it has 
ceased to be in a state of grace, even though that tem- 
poral good is not itself sinful. In other words, if a man 
loves some earthly thing to the exclusion of God, so 
that he is at that moment ready to sin mortally rather 
than to lose it, then that man is out of God's grace, 
though he may not have committed any act of sin be- 
yond that act of adherence. Let me quote one or two 
theologians to make my meaning clearer. "A venial 
sin," says Scavini, " may become mortal by reason of 
the bad disposition of the soul ; for instance, supposing 
a man, doing a thing venially bad or indifferent, is in 
such a state of mind that he would still do it although 
it were a mortal sin ; for by that evil will he shows that 
he already prefers that thing to friendship with God." 
Let us turn now to St. Thomas, a far higher authority. 
" If the love of riches should increase in a man so much 
as to be preferred to charity, in such a sense that for the 
love of riches he would not fear to do something against 
the love of God and his neighbour, then avarice becomes 
a mortal sin." And still more clearly: u Gluttony 
may be a mortal sin, if we look upon it with reference 
to the turning away from our legitimate, ultimate end, 
involved in its inordinate desire. And this takes place 
when a man adheres to the pleasures of gluttony as his 

* I am indebted for these quotations to the unpublished pamphlet of 
a learned and valued friend. Scavini, De Vitiis, Disp. 1, cap. 2, art. 
3. S. Thomas, Summa, 2, 2. Quest. 1 18, art. 4, Quest. 148, art. 2. 



372 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 

end, for which he contemns God: that is, if he is pre- 
pared to act against the commandments of God in order 
to obtain such pleasure." In other words, according to 
the saint's view, the gravity of sin lies in the amount of 
tenacity with which the will adheres to an object to the 
prejudice of God. Supposing, then, I only say suppo- 
sing, a creature appreciates the world more than God, 
according to the doctrine of St. Thomas he has already 
lost the grace of God, though no other act of sin has oc- 
curred, and though he may perhaps be culpably unaware 
of his state. 

Alas ! is such a supposition so very wild ? How many 
a virgin soul has Paris corrupted down to the very heart's 
core ! In that Moenad world there are beings who but 
lately were school-girls in convents, and who are 
En f ants de Marie still. What has come to them that 
they look like daughters of Circe rather than children 
of the pure and holy Virgin? They have done nothing 
which could dishonour them : but here again let us not 
deceive ourselves. It is a part of the illusions of the 
present day to feel secure as long as there has been no 
great evil of the kind of which the soul feels most 
horror even in thought. But there are other command- 
ments besides the sixth. There are six other deadly 
sins, each a source of sin which may be mortal. What 
is worse in the eyes of God than pride? When the 
love of admiration and of worship rises to such a point 
as to make the soul reckless of giving scandal, careless 
of inflicting pain ; when a little absurd being uses her 
power of body and mind in order to be set up on high 
as an idol, to be worshipped and adored as a goddess, 
who will deny that here is vanity to a degree which is 
monstrous ! Add to this a portentous love of ease, 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



373 



cruelty to inferiors, envy, jealousy, and a love of dress, 
rising to the dignity of a passion ; here are sources of 
sin enough, each sufficient to shut out God. Alas ! for 
poor human nature, that such follies should stand in the 
place of God ; yet such is the experience of every day. 
When once the soul is entangled in the giddy vortex of 
the world, it clings with a tenacity to it, which is per- 
fectly marvellous, and the result is a character utterly 
spoiled and heart thoroughly corrupted. 

All this is to be remembered when it is asked 
whether worldliness is a mortal sin. It is not a mortal 
sin in the same sense as those which are treated of in 
books of moral theology, or in lists of examination of 
conscience, but it is a tone of mind which, from the 
absence of God, breaks out into a number of sins which 
may be mortal or not according to the degree in which 
they infect the soul. Nor must we suppose that the 
Catholic faith will, of itself, physically as it were, 
neutralize the effect of the world. The very contrary 
is the case ; worldliness has a most peculiar and direct 
power to neutralize the faith. Every one knows how 
evil passions may co-exist and remain side by side with 
the faith without impairing it. It almost seems as 
though the faith existed in a different sphere in the 
soul, and that sin was shut off from it and did not hurt 
it. It is not so in the case of worldliness. It sinks 
deeper into the heart than direct sin ; it seems to soak 
into the whole being, and to imbue it thoroughly. The 
whole view of God is dimmed, and He seems to retire 
far away into some immeasurable distance, so that His 
presence is far less felt than is the case with a state of 
tangible sin, where His influence comes sensibly, at least, 
in the shape of remorse. The rays of His blessed light 



374 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 

do not penetrate it; the beams of His love strike coldly 
on it, and seem to glance aside. The idea of His 
sovereign authority is especially impaired by it, and for 
the same reason faith in the authority of the Church is 
almost always shaken. 

Thus it is that, apparently by some strange fatality, 
worldly Catholics who lay claim to piety have ever 
managed to be the chief support of schisms and all 
rebellions against the Church. The reason of this is 
obvious. The world troubles itself very little about 
the faith till it appears incarnate before it in the shape 
of Church-authority. It affects liberality; a worldly 
man suffers his wife and daughters to think what they 
please about Transubstantiation, to bow in prayer 
before a crucifix, and to crown our Lady's image with 
flowers. But what he will not tolerate is the assump- 
tion of jurisdiction by the Church. While, therefore, 
he can bear the doctrines of the Church, he is frantic 
at her censures. The world will not suffer that any 
object on earth should be sacred to anything but itself; 
and whenever a thing of this world has a double 
aspect, a temporal and a spiritual, it ignores the latter 
character, and chooses to contemplate the earthly side 
alone. It is up in arms when a bishop carries out the 
laws of the Church with respect to marriage, or refuses 
to sing a Te Deum over its sacrilege. It insists on the 
dominions of the Holy See being looked upon as a 
mere temporal kingdom, and sneers at the notion that 
any part of earth can be holy ground. It is maddened 
out of its scornful propriety at what it calls the inter- 
ference of priests with families. It acknowledges no 
ecclesiastical legislation on the subject of matrimony, 
and is positively enraged at a vocation. 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 375 



Such is the world's conduct towards the faith, and 
the peculiar tendency of the worldly Catholic is to 
become its tool, and to follow its lead. In all schisms 
and all revolts against the Church, the world has been 
able to point to the compliance of Catholics, who had a 
semblance of piety, as an argument against the fana- 
ticism of those who have stood firm to the Holy See 
against it. Worldliness had sapped the foundations of 
their faith, notwithstanding their frequentation of the 
Sacraments. Gradually the thought of God's Sove- 
reignty has grown fainter and fainter in their souls, 
and in the hour of trial they take the side of the world 
on the first exercise of power on the part of God's 
representative on earth. They allow themselves to be 
taken in by the world's distinction between the autho- 
rity of the Church in matters of belief and of practice, 
forgetting that she is the appointed guide of our con- 
duct as well as of our faith. 

The tendency to schism, then, must be added to the 
collection of sins of which worldliness is the source ; 
and since society in London is essentially Protestant, 
the danger of imbibing an heretical turn of mind from 
constant contact with it, must never be forgotten. 

We are now in a condition to consider the questions 
with which we begun this discussion, and to ascertain 
the principles on which Holy Communion is to be 
allowed to those who live in the midst of the great 
world. 

First of all, worldliness is to be distinctly taken into 
account in the question, how often may the Holy Com- 
munion be granted to a soul? This is a self-evident 
axiom, yet it is by no means useless to notice it. It 
is but too often taken for granted that a soul free from 



376 THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 

grosser sins may be allowed almost unlimited commu- 
nions. Let us never, however, forget that to be worldly 
is positively wrong, and that, except in the rarest in- 
stances, to be living in a constant round of pleasure is 
to be worldly. It does not, therefore, by any means 
follow that a person, raised by position above the 
temptation to vice, is necessarily to be permitted to com- 
municate three or four times a week while she is living in 
dissipation and gaiety. The question is too often treated 
as though it could simply be reduced to another: is 
dancing, or this or that amusement wrong ? This seems, 
however, to mistake the whole point at issue ; dancing, 
is no more wrong than any other gymnastic. The real 
question is, whether a life spent in the pursuit of ease 
and tumultuous pleasure, is not sure so far to separate 
the soul from God, as to render it certain that its com- 
munions will be fruitless and indevout. 

Secondly, as we have seen, the characteristic of world- 
liness, in contradistinction to other states of sin, is that 
the soul may be to a certain extent comparatively un- 
conscious of it. For this reason there is no repentance, 
no contrition, no struggle. In its lowest stages, world- 
liness may be defined to be tranquil acquiescence in 
venial sin. If there be a state to which is applicable 
the rule given above for the limit of communions, it 
is that of the worldly. Frequent communion does 
them positive mischief, for it tends to keep up in them 
that combination of utter lukewarmness and perfect 
self-satisfaction, which constitutes their danger and 
their guilt. 

I can only conceive of one objection which can be 
made to what I have advanced. If what I have said of 
worldliness is true, it would follow that a worldly person 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 377 



could not communicate even once a week, nay, could 
never communicate at all. To this I make a two-fold 
answer. 

1. Worldliness is a disease which may exist in almost 
endless degrees and stages. We will suppose its lowest 
stage, the case of thos whom it does not betray into 
more than venial sins. In this case the objection is not 
peculiar to the worldly, but applies to all who have an 
affection to venial sin, and is to be answered in the 
same way. Weekly communion may be allowed them 
on the plea that it preserves them from mortal sin. 
For the refusal of more frequent communion I can 
only quote St. Alphonso's opinion: " As for those per- 
sons," says the saint, a who are not in danger of mortal 
sin, but who commonly fall into deliberate venial 
sins, and in whom there is neither amendment nor 
desire of amendment, it is not right to allow them 
to communicate more than once a week. It would be 
well even at times to deprive them of Holy Communion 
for a whole week, that they may conceive a greater 
horror of their sins, and a greater respect for the sacra- 
ment." On the one hand, then, the saint allows them 
communion once a week, in order to keep them from 
mortal sin ; on the other, he expressly forbids them to 
communicate oftener, and he advises their being de- 
prived from time to time of their weekly communion. 
We should not forget his last memorable words. O 
blessed St. Alphonso, that all who imitate thy kindness 
to sinners would equally follow thee in thy severity 
towards the worldly. 

Secondly, there are cases where worldliness has be- 
come a chronic disease, where the soul is perfectly en- 
grossed with and absorbed in the world, and where God 



378 



THE COMMUNIONS OF THE WORLDLY. 



is practically forgotten. In such cases I freely admit I 
do not see on what principle Holy Communion can be 
allowed, except as it is given sometimes to sinners of 
most doubtful repentance, out of sheer compassion, for 
fear of their being driven altogether from God. 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 379 



CHAPTER TIL 

THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

It is one of the misfortunes of us Catholics, in Eng- 
land, that it is difficult for us to keep completely clear 
of controversy. Even when we are thinking in the 
silence of our chamber on the dogmas of the Church, 
insensibly we find ourselves looking upon our holy faith 
in a controversial point of view, raising up before our 
minds imaginary adversaries, and asking ourselves what 
can be said to this or that objection. This, of course, 
arises in part from our polemical position. We are 
erecting the second temple; enemies are all round 
about us, and we keep the weapons of war close by the 
instruments of building, ready at any given moment to 
raise our war-cry. We cannot wish it otherwise ; yet 
it must be owned that this state of things has its disad- 
vantages. It breeds in us something of the intellec- 
tualism of the age. Is there not in us something of 
that spirit of universal criticism which characterises the 
Englishman of the nineteenth century? We converts, 
especially, have a rampant judgment, a habit which we 
have imbibed from infancy of criticising everything 
and everybody, and it is hard for us to shake it off. 
Nothing can be more fatal to the childlike spirit of faith. 

Reader, we have suffered from this propensity. 
There has unavoidably been an unquiet tone of polemics 



380 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

throughout a book, the title of which promised peace. 
Let us now, however, at the conclusion of our task, 
forget for a while that there is such a thing as error 
upon earth. If there is a place in the wide world 
where it is easy to feel like a child, it is at the feet of 
Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament. We kneel down and 
gaze at the tabernacle door, happy in the thought that 
He is there. O blessed Jesus, if all the philosophers on 
earth proved it to be impossible, we should still believe 
without an effort, like a child. It needs no obstinacy 
and no tenacity ; we know that Thou art there. 

Blessed Jesus, we have dared to penetrate into the 
secret recesses of Thy Sacred Heart in Thy Passion. 
We looked upon it in His agony, broken with disap- 
pointed love, and sending forth the Precious Blood at 
each conclusive throb. We watched it pouring out its 
gushing streams of mingled blood and water, after it 
had ceased to beat. Here is a new state, a fresh 
marvel. Let us wonder and adore. Deign to listen, 
Lord, while we repeat our credo at Thy feet. 

Credo, I believe. The great Godhead is there. 
Angels are all around in the silent, lonely church, ador- 
ing Thee, while we, Thy sinful creatures, pour out 
from our poor hearts acts of which they are incapable. 
With heartfelt joy, we fling at Thy feet all reasoning 
power, and we use our intellects to frame joyous acts 
of faith with deep thankfulness, and to say that all 
things are possible with Thee, and to bow down our 
whole being before Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. 

It is a marvellous thought, that Thou art there as 
Thou art nowhere else except in the Host. Beyond the 
borders of its little circle, Thou art not as Thou art 
within it. It is God in another shape and form; our 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT- 381 

great God over again in a new manifestation of unut- 
terable love ; God attendant upon and coming in the 
train of the Sacred Humanity. 

Yes, Lord Jesus, we believe that it is Thou Thyself. 
After all, this is the one thought which occupies us. 
As all the mysteries of the Christian religion are 
gathered up in that little Host, so all the wonders of 
the Blessed Sacrament are summed up in that one dear 
thought, Jesus is there. All the sweetness that is con- 
tained in that marvellous word, is all there. The 
Sacred Host is God and Man ; it is both together, and 
each without confusion. There is the Sacred Humanity 
in very deed. We adore you, blessed Feet, which the 
Magdalene kissed, and bedewed with tears. Not more 
literally were they held by her than they are now 
within a few yards of us. Hail, dear Hands, once 
dropping blood on Calvary ; arms often thrown around 
Mary's neck, and stretched upon the cross for our salva- 
tion; and thou, beloved Face, beautiful even in the 
ghastly whiteness of His agony before the bloody sweat 
came down. The eyes are there, from whose calm 
depths of lustrous beauty the soul of the Eternal Word 
looked forth in love upon the broad earth which He 
had made, eyes that were filled with human tears, and 
met other human looks with tenderest pity, and rained 
down showers of marvellous love even from the cross 
upon his murderers. Hail, blessed lips of the Eternal 
Word, which spoke as never man spoke; blest portals 
through which the Sacred Heart poured itself out in 
mysterious voices, which sound still out of the depths 
of ages, as living as the moment they were uttered. Ye 
are silent now, but not with the silence of death. Oh ! 
speak, gracious Lips? No Herods are here to ask for 



382 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

miracles out of profane curiosity, but poor children of 
Thine, to whom one little word from Thee would be 
the sweetest sound that ever fell on mortal ears. 

Yet, dear Lord, that silence of Thine is far more elo- 
quent than words. Thy whole state speaks far more 
than even Thine own tongue could tell. Voices come 
out from the tabernacle as we kneel before it, and sink 
down into the depths of our souls. The Sacred Heart 
speaks to ours though the Lips are mute. This, at least, 
loves us, even though all sense were sealed and imper- 
vious to us. Even though it were true that every 
direct avenue from ourselves to the Sacred Humanity 
were closed, yet messages from us at least reach the 
Heart. It lives, and its life is love. His human 
activity is not suspended there, even though it were 
dormant elsewhere. No veil can hide our presence 
from His knowledge. Pour out your whole soul before 
Him, for He hears, He pities and He loves ; or rather 
listen, for He speaks. 

O faithful Heart of Jesus, eighteen hundred years 
are gone since Thy life on earth, and here we find 
Thee again, the same and yet how changed. The 
anguish and the agony have disappeared with the wild 
flutter of tremulous fear, and the dead weight of blank 
sadness, the sickness from loss of blood, the physical 
pain of convulsive throbs, and the last struggle of the 
strong spirit rending its way in its agony ; all these are 
over. But in the blessed repose of the present we 
cannot forget the past. It is still the broken Heart of 
the Passion. Blessed confidant of all earth's sorrows, 
millions in each generation since then have knelt before 
Thee, yet not all the sum of their several griefs can 
reach to Thine, nor has any sorrow in that countless 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 383 

multitude been unfelt by Thee. O blessed Sacra- 
ment, there are few countries in the world where Thou 
hast not been since then. What woes hast Thou not 
soothed, for Thou hadst felt them all Thyself before. 
Thou hast been given to tens of thousands in the cata- 
combs, and hast visited the dungeon of the martyr on 
the eve of death. Popes have borne Thee on their 
bosoms in their flight, and exiled confessors in their 
long fight for the faith have found their only comfort 
in Thee. Doctors have found light at Thy feet, and 
unlettered monks have fed upon Thee in the desert. 
Thou hast been the light of monasteries, and the one 
joy of holy virgins. O Sacred Host, St. Perpetua 
dreamt of Thee, St. Clare bore Thee in her arms, and 
Thou didst fly without the aid of human hand to St. 
Catherine of Sienna. But it is not of all this that we 
think now. It is wonderful enough that any human 
heart should contain Thee, however saintly ; but that 
Thou shouldst come to sinners such as we, that Thou 
shouldst give Thyself to the imperfect and the sinful, 
this is a wonder surpassing all other wonders, and which 
eternity will not suffice to praise. 

We recognize Thee, Sacred Heart, in the Blessed 
Sacrament. The Passion is over, but even in the deep 
tranquillity of Thy Eucharistic life, Thou art still the 
same. Then thou didst carry all our sorrow and taste 
the universal woes of earth, and now in the Holy Com- 
munion we reap the fruits of Thy universal sympathy. 
Thou didst suffer and die for all, and even wide as Thy 
redemption must be the distribution of Thy Blessed 
Sacrament of Love. Now we understand the words of 
a dear old saint: " Who could have believed it? God has 
a want in the midst of the plenitude of His abundance ; 



384 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 



He longs to be longed for ; He is thirsty that men should 
thirst for Him."* Look at the altar rail ; here is God 
slaking His thirst. Enter into a London chapel on a 
Snnday morning. It is no high festival, but a common 
Sunday, when not even the few attempts at magnificence 
which our poverty permits us are displayed. Let it be 
in the depths of the city, in an old-fashioned chapel with 
Protestant pews. Here the church has no beauty that 
one should desire her. No organ peals, and no sweet- 
toned choir chants. Yet there is a marvel which kings 
and prophets thirsted to see and did not see. They throng 
to the altar ; the priest in a low voice repeats the blessed 
words, and gives to each his God. No saints are there 
but good ordinary Christians, fearing God in the midst 
of the world ; some are even great sinners who have been 
just cleansed in the Sacrament of Penance. The same 
scene goes on all over even this heretical land. No glori- 
ous bells ring out over the length and breadth of England, 
from spire and steeple, to announce the adorable Sacrifice, 
but in our great wicked towns you may count the com- 
municants by tens of thousands. In Birmingham and 
Sheffield, Liverpool and Manchester, they are crowding 
to receive their Lord. The same blessed work is going 
on in lowly country missions scattered up and down the 
country, where a few worshippers still congregate to 
worship the God of their fathers, in venerable chapels 
under the roof of Catholic gentlemen, the descendants 
of martyrs, where the Blessed Sacrament has found a 
refuge through centuries of persecution. If such are 
the scenes enacted in a country which has lost its faith, 
what shall we say to the countless communions of 



* St. Gregory Nazianzen, Or. 40. 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 385 



Catholic France, Italy and Spain? But there are com- 
munions all over the earth. In Mantchuria and in China, 
in the backwoods of America, and the coral islands of 
the Pacific, in Algiers and India, men of every race and 
colour are receiving the Body of Jesus at the hands of 
Christian priests. Each separate communion is a very 
miracle of love, and each bears witness to the thirst of 
Jesus for union with His poor creatures. 

This has been going on for near two thousand years, 
and will go on to the day of doom. Whenever you 
catch a glimpse of the inner life of the Church in times 
long gone by, you find yourself in the presence of the 
Blessed Sacrament. Who can count the numberless 
communions since the first Mass was said on the eve of 
the first Good Friday ? All the generations of Christians 
who are asleep, waiting for the resurrection, each in his 
quiet grave in numberless churchyards all over the earth, 
or in the cloisters of ruined monasteries, and ship- 
wrecked men who lie in the depths of the sea, all these 
have received their Lord over and over again in their 
lives. The Blessed Sacrament has lain on hearts which 
were once full of life and joy, and are now cold in the 
grave. Jesus has soothed the sorrows of these myriads 
of souls in their lifetime. How many deathbeds has he 
visited since Christianity began 1 How often has He been 
carried to the dying in missionary countries, over moun- 
tains and moors, over rivers and lonely lakes, across 
stormy friths and arms of the sea, to Irish cabins or to 
Highland homes ! How often has He been borne on the 
bosoms of priests, unknown and unrecognised, along 
crowded streets up into squalid garrets, in courts and 
lanes ! Not the stars of heaven nor the sand on the sea- 
shore can outnumber the communions which have taken 



386 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 



place from the beginning ; and in each, great as may 
have been the joy of the soul which received Him, yet 
there was a greater joy in the Heart of Jesus at the 
moment when He united Himself to His poor sinful 
child ! 

No bridegroom ever met his bride at the altar with 
anything resembling the joy with which Jesus, in the 
Blessed Sacrament, finds Himself a home in a human 
heart ! " Come unto Me all you who labour and are 
burdened, and I will refresh you." Come, ye who 
work sorrowfully through the livelong day to gain 
your daily bread. All who toil, whether with hand or 
brain, Irish labourers and street- sellers, poor semp- 
stresses and factory-girls, come freely to the waters of 
life. Come, all who bend over your desks during the 
weary week, merchants from the city, lawyers from 
the courts, and students from universities. Life is 
tumultuous and dissipating : temptations are numberless. 
The world, the flesh, and the devil are awfully strong; 
but, be of good cheer, Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament 
has overcome them all. There will the young man 
learn to be chaste, the poor to be contented, the man of 
intellect to be humble. Come, maidens, to preserve 
your innocence ; and mothers, to learn how to love your 
husbands and your children, for the love of God. 
Come, broken-hearted sinners, here is an antidote for 
the poison of sin, and a cure for the dreadful habits 
which well nigh drive you to despair. Come all, and 
receive the Blessed Sacrament every week, for so the 
doctors of the Church tell us all may do who struggle 
in real earnest to keep out of mortal sin. 

But you, above all, restless, weary souls, worn out 
with battling with imperfections; or rather, wearing 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 387 

out your own life with longing aspirations after holi- 
ness, which seems to fly away. Think not that your 
efforts are in vain. It is something to thirst for God. 
" Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for justice, 
for they shall be filled." Be not afraid ; your thirst for 
the Holy Communion is only a faint reflection of the 
thirst which Jesus feels for union with you. Be not 
kept back by the sense of your own un worthiness ; the 
fact that you long for the Holy Communion proves 
that our Lord intends you to receive Him often. To 
you especially He says : u Come unto Me, all you who 
labour and are burdened, and I will refresh you." 

It seems to me that unrest and uneasiness is the 
universal disease of minds in our time; and that the 
good are not exempt from it. We feel impotent to 
love God, because the former outlets for the love of 
God seem to be closed up, and we are all weary and 
heavy-laden in consequence. In former times a man 
would have left wife and children, have buckled on his 
armour, and gone on a crusade to recover the Holy 
Sepulchre. A lady would have built an abbey, and 
have lived in it after her husband's death, or dedicated 
herself to serve the poor in hospitals. There were 
definite things to be done for God, and men lived and 
died happy then in the thought of being able to do 
something to manifest to Jesus their inward love. 
Now, however, a certain indistinctness has come over 
our very religion. I often ask myself what should St. 
Elizabeth have done, had she lived now? Had she 
done in the nineteenth century what she did in the 
thirteenth, she would have been shut up in a mad- 
house. Imagine a young duchess like her walking 
about with a coronet on her head, and on a sudden 



388 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 



impulse taking it off, and throwing herself down at the 
foot of a cross in the square of Wurzburg, to weep her 
heart out over the passion of Jesus; or else carrying 
loaves of bread in her apron to the poor, or tending a 
leper in her husband's bed. Cribbed, cabined, and con- 
fined in all the trammels of modern society, compelled 
by etiquette never to set her foot on the pavement of 
London, she would run the risk of pining her heart 
away, from the want of an outlet for the fire burning 
within her breast. Conceive St. Catherine attempting 
to preach in Trafalgar-square, as she did in the streets 
of Siena. The Holy Spirit would doubtless mould and 
frame her according to the needs of the age; but 
naturally we cannot imagine what would become of 
such a beins; living amongst us. 

O O o 

The consequence of such a state of things is espe- 
cially felt by many who feel an ardent desire for 
frequent communion. They cannot bear to feed on 
the Blessed Sacrament as a mere portion of the luxury 
of religion. It seems monstrous to partake of the Body 
and Blood of Jesus so often, and to produce no ade- 
quate fruit. " What can I do for God? I am doing 
nothing, I am impotent," is their constant cry. On the 
one hand, it is wrong to break out into irregularities 
and extravagances, in defiance of the laws of society; 
on the other, each communion lights up a conscious fire 
in the heart, which seems to burn away the very life of 
the recipient without apparently consuming his imper- 
fections. St. Bernard's words seem ever wringing in 
their ears, " How Thou lovest me, my God," without 
St. Bernard's power of making a return. " How Thou 
lovest me, my God, and my love ! I am never out of 
Thy thoughts. Thou art ever full of zeal for the 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 389 

salvation of Thy poor, miserable creature."* Thou hast 
died for me upon the cross, and even Thou dost give 
me Thine own dear self in the Blessed Sacrament. 
What shall I render to the Lord for all that He has 
done for me? I will receive the cup of salvation, St. 
Perpetua and the martyrs of old would have said, and 
drink the dre^s of the bitter chalice of suffering for 
the love of Jesus. I will go through the wide world 
proclaiming Thy dear name, and setting men's hearts 
on fire with the flame which Thou didst long to kindle, 
might have answered some great-souled Bernard or 
Dominic. Hark to the blessed chant of St. Elizabeth, 
a wife, a mother, and a princess: "The kingdom of 
earth and all the splendour of the world have I 
trodden under foot for the love of my Lord Jesus 
Christ whom I have seen, whom I have loved, in 
whom I have believed, on whom I have set my heart." 
But what can we do for Thee, O my Lord? There 
are doubtless saints on earth now, although we may not 
know them, and they may come and receive Thee 
often in Thy Sacrament of Love, but we with our 
languid hearts and impotent hands, how dare we come 
near Thee, we who live at home at ease, while the 
Church is militant and the tents of Israel are in the 
field? . We seem to have no cross to carry save the 
dead, heavy weight of our own sins and imperfections. 
Surely he who frequently receives the Body and Blood 
of Jesus ought to do more for Him than those who 
seldom come near Him. 

Yes, a truer word was never said ; frequent communi- 
cants should bear fruits in some proportion to this ines- 



* In Cant. Serm. 17. 



390 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

timable favour. But nothing will be gained by a sickly 
languid complaint, or a restless, hysterical uneasiness. 
It is a part of our misfortune that our tendency is ever 
to fix our inward eye upon ourselves and upon the state 
of our souls. Hence a subtle selfishness comes on. Self- 
contemplation is the disease of us all, and the conse- 
quence of it is, that almost all the world grows weary of 
interior religion and flings itself wildly upon wide, public 
schemes of doing good, upon active committees and 
associations of benevolence; while others pine their 
lives away in the sickly sentimentality of disappointed 
aspirations. 

Let us avoid both extremes, and see what sort of life 
can be led by those who feel impelled by an ardent 
desire for frequent communion, yet shrink from it on 
account of the little wdiich they seem to be able to do 
for God. There must be a life below that of a cano- 
nized saint, yet above the world. I am not at this 
moment contemplating the great saints of God. They 
are a class apart, and few were even meant by God to 
such heights of glory. The Holy Spirit does not intend 
all Christians in that sense to be saints. He does not 
give saintly grace to all. Look at that beautiful ecstatica, 
with the blood streaming spontaneously and silently 
from her bleeding brow, and hands, and feet. Who 
will pretend that all Christian women were ever such 
even in God's idea? Look at that beautiful vision of 
heaven, St. Philip gazing on the Host which he has just 
consecrated, his white face glowing w ith heavenlv li^ht, 
and his very body floating in mid air, carried upwards 
by his strong spirit of love. Not every Mass was meant 
to be like this. Some of us may be saints spoiled in the 
making. But the generality of Christians were never 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 391 

intended to be canonized saints at at all. We should be 
mistaking and despising the ordinary ways of God's 
grace if we thought so. Yet, God forbid that we should 
be like the world. There are certain unmistakeable 
characteristics which separate a good Christian from the 
rest of mankind. It was not of saints alone but of all 
Christians that our Lord said that they must take up 
their cross and follow Him. There must plainly be a 
certain peculiar character produced by the frequenta- 
tion of the Sacraments, short indeed of technical 
sanctity, yet far above the world. It cannot indeed be 
denned, for a character is something too ethereal to be 
comprised in a definition ; but if I were to attempt to 
define a good Christian, I should say he was one who 
was all for God. 

It is very hard to describe what is meant by the 
Christian fear of God. Of course, in the world there is 
no practical recognition whatsoever of the sovereignty 
of God. But I am not speaking of the world. Some 
good persons are positively scared by the thought of 
Him. When first it breaks upon them, that they and 
all they possess, their children and all that they hold 
dearest, are literally in the hands of an absolute, irre- 
sponsible God, who can with perfect justice do what 
He wills with them, there comes a revulsion upon their 
souls. This often takes place with converts. The self- 
satisfied Pharisaism of their former condition, when God 
is often practically null, then gives place to a sort of 
normal state of querulous discontent. His sovereignty 
lies like a dismal shadow on their souls. They sit un- 
easily as yet under all the tremendous realities of eternity. 
They are unaccustomed as yet to the character of God 
which these reveal. This irrational fright, however, is 



392 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 



not Christian fear. There is a beautiful tranquillity in a 
good Christian's quiet recognition of the fact that God 
is absolute. How -wonderfully this thought of God 
covers in their mind all the relations of life ! There is 
nothing outside God for them. There is a touching 
simplicity in the way in which, with perfect natural- 
ness, without any drawback or reservation, without 
insincerity, yet without loud profession, they wish to 
know the will of God. There is no awkward reserve 
about them; you can see down into the depths of their 
souls ; they are clear and limpid as a pure stream before 
God, and all that is God's. The stream spreads out its 
bosom and tranquilly mirrors heaven only, and so do 
they. And this distinguishes them from the others 
whom I have described. It is so much a first principle 
with them that God can do what He wills, that it has 
become a second nature to them. They fear Him 
because He is God, but there is no shyness or timidity, 
no cowardice in their fear. Above all, the thought of 
offending Him deliberately never enters into their 
minds. He is God, and such is His law. They may 
sin from hastiness, from temper, from a thousand 
imperfections, but deliberately, God forbid. The 
chaste, blessed law of God follows them everywhere. 
It enters into their choice of a state of life; it rules 
supreme over their disposal of their children. Not 
only, however, do they obey cheerfully and absolutely 
God's positive law, but by a sort of perfectly uncon- 
scious aim at perfection, they instinctively always con- 
sider what will please God best. The notion of a 
creature not doing wdiat his Creator wishes, even in 
cases where there is no definite obligation, appears to 
them irrational and absurd. Thus, in all their com- 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 393 



duct, self is nothing, God is everything. They act as 
if they had no personal interest in anything. Rank, 
wealth, children, were not given for their pleasure, 
to be appanages of self, but to be used solely for 
God. 

I need not point out here how this tranquil fear 
implies love. It is physically impossible for beings con- 
stituted as we are thus to throw ourselves into the arms 
of one who does not love us intensely. We could not 
abandon ourselves implicitly to a cruel tyrant. It is 
because God is Infinite Goodness that our confidence in 
Him is so unbounded, that unhesitatingly we place our 
entire trust in one whose justice is so awful, whose claims 
are so absolute. There is a most joyful feeling in per- 
fect repose upon the Infinite. We are raised above the 
stifling prison feeling of earth, and breathe freely 
when we have found an object on whom we can rest 
without let or hindrance. The very absoluteness of 
God is a relief to us. Our little nature can plunge into 
that dread immensity, secure of finding itself caught 
and upborne on the wings of boundless love. For this 
reason it is that our ideal Christian trusts God against 
all appearances. In the midst of the perplexing ways 
of God's dealing with him, his faith never fails. 
Others, whose fear is slavish, dread God as though He 
might be expected at any moment to circumvent them, 
and in the midst of actual trials are ever querulous and 
complaining. Far different is a Christian's loyal feel- 
ing. "Though He kill me, yet will I trust Him." 
God's ways may be mysterious, but they are far more 
sure of His love than they can be of anything else in 
the world, and their love only becomes more pure and 
more intense in the fiery furnace of trial. 



394 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 



I need not say that such Christians are unworldly. 
When such tremendous interests are at stake, earthly 
things become immediately valueless. Rank, wealth, 
honour grow very pale before the full light of God, 
Heaven and Hell. Worldly pleasures weigh nothing 
in comparison with Holy Communion or a visit to the 
Blessed Sacrament. There is nothing in them of the 
absorption, the terrible tenacity with which the world is 
bent on its interests. Instead of the frantic and cruel 
opposition which worldly Catholics throw in the way of 
vocations, they think it an honour to have a priest or a 
religious among their children. They prefer a profes- 
sion to a brilliant marriage. This unworldliness throws 
a blessed aureole of sanctity over all their earthly rela- 
tions. There is no self in the love over which God 
presides. Children are loved intensely as precious gifts 
from God, and, therefore, there is no weakness or over- 
indulgence in their education. Husbands and wives 
love each other far more intensely than can be when 
God is absent, yet their love is without idolatry. In- 
difference is certainly by no means a virtue in married 
Christians, because their love for each other is the result 
of a sacrament, and the more perfect they grow, the 
greater is their love. No fear of loving each other too 
well, as long as God is loved more than all. 

After all, the basis of the character is love, insepara- 
ble indeed from holy fear, yet still intense love for God, 
flowing out without sentiment, without profession, in a 
thousand ways spontaneously upon all that God loves. 
This is the proper, legitimate effect of the Holy Com- 
munion, its sacramental grace. The Heart of Jesus 
comes close to the human heart, and infuses into it all 
its loves. 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 395 



First, it brings with it a strange love of solitude. 
Jesus loved the lonely mountain and the desert, and a 
desire for solitary prayer is generally the result of 
frequent communion. I by no means forget the mar- 
ried life of St. Jane Frances de Chantal, and the remark 
of the servants, that as soon as she quitted her old 
director for St. Francis of Sales, her devotions were so 
managed as to incommode no one. A married woman 
and a mother cannot live like a Carmelite ; nevertheless, 
after all, God must have His hours ; there must be time 
for mental prayer; the Blessed Sacrament must be 
adored and visited. 

A love of lonely prayer is a very useful effect of 
frequent communion, as well as an index of fitness for 
it. Mystical tendencies are far more common in the 
Christian heart than is supposed. I am not speaking of 
supernatural prayer ; but there is many a step between 
the very lowest kind of prayer of quiet and common 
meditation. Many a soul has been stunted and thwarted 
in spiritual growth from a want of encouragement in 
prayer. It is but too often taken for granted that those 
who are living in the world are unfit for anything but 
vocal prayer, or for anything above the driest medita- 
tion. Let the free heart pour itself out before God. 
Tell Him of all your sorrows and your wants, and 
especially how much you long to love Him, and your 
deep contrition for your sins. If you have but a short 
time to spare, give it to Him without prelude or 
method. " Of all ways of praying, that is the best for 
us to which we are the most drawn, at which we 
succeed best, and from which we derive most profit," 
says an old Jesuit writer. The heart which has really 
turned to God will not long require to call upon the 



396 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 



imagination for compositions of place, or to draw on the 
intellect for proofs of truths which are its life. Be not 
afraid ; you will find no lack of things to say to God. 
Adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, confidence, love, all 
these can alternate with petitions for all wants, spiritual 
or even temporal. We should, except in particular 
cases, be inclined to suspect any desire for frequent 
communion, where a desire for prayer is absent. It is 
for want of it there is so much bustle, portentous 
activity, love of publicity, and littleness in the religious 
world. Nothing can make up for the habitual want of 
mental prayer. The offering up of our actions to God 
at the moment of doing them is not to be neglected, 
but it is not worth one half hour of continuous inter- 
course with Jesus in solitude. 

I need not say that the result of this intercourse with 
our Lord is the unconscious adoption of all sorts of 
supernatural principles and lines of conduct. As the 
world has its maxims and its ways of acting, so also 
has Christianity. Many a man has been all his life an 
indifferent Christian, because, though he has the faith 
of the Church, he still clings to national, and heretical 
views, feelings, and modes of action. On the contrary, 
those who grow in grace regularly, as though by a 
secret concert, adopt certain views, which, intellectually, 
may be called supernatural principles, and which in 
reality are instinctive feelings caught from the Heart 
of Jesus. 

First and foremost of these is the love of the poor. 
I am not speaking of mere benevolence. The Christian 
feeling towards the poor is something hard to describe. 
It is neither simple compassion, nor is it a sense of duty. 
There are few who do not feel pity akin to pain at hear- 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 397 



ing of suffering. There are many who know that alms- 
giving is a duty. But I can call a Christian's feeling 
for the poor by no other name than love. The strange 
extravagances of the saints, their love for the sores and 
w T ounds of the poor, arise from a sort of ecstacy of love, 
caught from the Heart of Jesus. For this reason the 
almsgiving of a real Christian is noble, generous, lavish, 
and uncalculating. Though it is a real supernatural 
prudence, yet the world would call it improvident. God 
blesses the great houses where generous almsgiving is 
hereditary. After all, here is the great mark of un- 
• worldliness, the practical test of love for the poor. At 
the same time that alms are given regally, they are also 
bestowed with courtesy and with a kind of reverence. 
True Christians have a feeling for the poor, which can 
only be called respect. They do not dragoon them, or 
legislate for them, but consult their feelings, their habits, 
their very caprices. 

Need I say that another love of the Heart of Jesus, 
the love for sinners, is fully shared by the good Chris- 
tian? There is always something of an apostle in him. 
How strange it is that the purest souls are ever the most 
tender towards sinners ! There is a profound Pharisaism 
in the worldly heart, when its virtue is only natural. 
How different is the lesson learned from the wounded 
Heart of Jesus by those who receive Him often in the 
Sacrament of His Love. He bids them try to save sin- 
ners at any price. True, they are corrupt to the very 
heart's core, ungrateful, deceitful, horrible to behold. 
But in the mind of a Christian all the natural disgust and 
repugnance is swallowed up in a profound pity for 
their unutterable degradation, their state of desperate 
foulness. Are they not immortal souls ? Did not Jesus 



398 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

die for thera? They are sinking down and down in 
deeper depths of unspeakable abomination, which can 
only end in hell. Hence, horror in a Christian soul 
gives way before fright at their dreadful danger. 
Hence, when Jesus touches the heart, all the feeling 
which bids the sinners stand off, which thanks God that 
he is not as that Publican, disappears, and gives place to 
pitying love. The purest and the most holy souls sur- 
round miserable sinners with the most pathetic anxiety* 
The thought that Jesus is so terribly dishonoured is to 
them intolerable ; and whenever they hear of a sinner, 
of whatever kind, they cannot rest till by prayer, or 
alms, or personal exertion, they have compassed his con- 
version, and thus repaired the honour of our Lord and 
saved his soul. It is an epoch in the life of a Christian 
when this feeling dawns upon his soul. It is a proof of 
increasing union with God. It shows that prayer is 
doing its work, that the Holy Communion is transfor- 
ming him to the image of Jesus. The kindling of this 
apostolic flame can only be a spark from the burning 
love of the Sacred Heart. 

Another love caught from the Blessed Sacrament is 
the love of the Church. However the world may 
manage to complicate questions in its contests with the 
Church, there is a sure instinct in real piety which 
makes it see clearly which is the right side. This is a 
tremendous touchstone of true religion. What can I 
do for God? you ask me. There is as much, perhaps 
more, to be done for Him in this generation as in the 
time when men assumed the cross to rescue the Holy 
Sepulchre. Be loyal to the Holy See in the day when 
its children are falling from it. Rise above national 
prejudice and insular feelings. Have the manliness to 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 399 



stand up for God's cause when so many are caught by- 
dreams of false liberality. Let there be no miserable 
compromise with heresy, no desire to stand well with 
the Protestant world. I have said that there was a 
marked difference between Christians, such as I am 
describing, and saints fit for canonization. Here, how- 
ever, the difference seems to melt away, and ordinary 
Christians in times of danger suddenly rise up before 
us with the stature and proportions of saints. There is 
a kind of character to be traced among English 
Catholics in ecclesiastical history, the precise parallel to 
which, if I am not mistaken, can hardly be seen else- 
where. There is a certain uprightness and reality, 
which, ordinarily speaking, without much outward pre- 
tension to sanctity, in time of trial comes out in unex- 
pected grandeur, and especially distinguishes itself by 
a valiant defence of those doctrines which have a direct 
reference to the Church. Such was our great St. 
Thomas of Canterbury; such too was our cardinal- 
martyr Fisher. I need hardly point to Sir Thomas 
More, once threatening to be but a British edition of 
Erasmus, yet all at once vigorously casting off the 
prejudices of an English lawyer, and ^exchanging his 
unstained ermine for a martyr's robe. Look again at 
plain Mistress Clitheroe of York, a wife and a mother, 
yet, suddenly, out of an honest English housewife, 
starting up as a martyr, and crushed to death like a 
blessed flower which gives out its hidden perfumes as 
it is trodden under foot. Of the same stamp was 
Philip Howard, he by whose side has just been laid at 
Arundel, one never to be forgotten, who resembled 
him in his noble singleness of purpose and beautiful 
simplicity. The days of martyrdom perhaps are gone, 



400 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

but there is no lack of work to be done for God. We 
can be the representatives of all high and holy principle 
in the midst of an unbelieving generation. Without 
pomp or pretension, from the simple fact of our holding 
Catholic principles and acting upon them, we can pro- 
test against the miserable liberalism of many who lend 
their honoured names to swell the cry against the 
Church of God. We will not, under pretence of fear- 
ing to scandalize Protestants, shrink from putting 
forward doctrines which peculiarly shock them, such as 
the exclusiveness of salvation and the jurisdiction of 
the Church. The heart that aspires heavenwards 
tramples all human respect under foot, and fears not 
to assert principles which shock the national prejudices, 
or the politics of the day. Our love for Jesus will 
make us feel like a wound any attack upon His Vicar, 
even in His capacity of sovereign. God forbid that we 
should be feeding on the sacraments of the Church, 
kneeling at her altars, and enjoying her ineffable con- 
solations, and yet refuse to bear her opprobrium with 
her, or be indifferent to the insults heaped upon her 
Head ! Our instincts will ever teach us that we must 
rally round St. Peter's chair, for there alone can we be 
sure of acting right amidst the confusion and tumult 

CD CD 

of the day. He who loves Jesus cannot help loving 
the Shepherd whom Jesus has set to feed His sheep in 
His absence. The love of Rome is a saintly instinct, 
coming direct from the Sacred Heart of Jesus. 

There is a work then to be done for God on the 
earth. The powers of evil are abroad; this is their 
hour, let us take God's side boldly, uncompromisingly. 
But, above all, there is work to be done for God in our 
own souls. We might be far better than we are. Our 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 401 

heart is a battlefield as well as the world. There are 
three powers there fighting for the mastery, the spirit 
of evil, the human spirit, and the Spirit of God. 
Watch your own thoughts and the movements of your 
own soul ; you will find that each one comes from one 
of these three sources, God, the devil, or yourself. 
Now, the spiritual life consists in the prevalence of the 
Holy Ghost over His miserable rivals. Pride and 
haughtiness, sensibility to slights and insults real or 
fancied, unkindness and harsh judgments, want of con- 
siderateness for servants and dependants, anger and 
hastiness in giving reproofs, all these are perpetually 
rising up in our hearts, and are to be put down. Quick 
emotions are ever agitating and unmanning us. Here, 
then, is work enough for us to do. Say not: we have 
tried so long that we are out of heart. Because efforts 
have failed, it does not follow that we should not 
renew them. Let us fight on, without expecting any 
result from ourselves, but only through the might of 
Jesus. Here must be the work of the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. Receive Jesus frequently. He will calm these 
troubled waves and give you peace. The fire from His 
Sacred Heart, coming so close to yours, will burn up 
these impurities, and inflame it with heavenly love. 
His Blessed Spirit will take possession of your body 
and soul, till you will no longer think your own 
thoughts, or be at the mercy of your own feelings, but 
see all things with His eyes, and feel with His Heart 
instead of your own. He longs for this Himself; 
il with desire He desires" to unite Himself to you in 
the Holy Communion. 

To us priests it belongs to satisfy this desire of Jesus. 
To us He has entrusted this most blessed power of 

2 D 

/ 



402 THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 

distributing the Blessed Sacrament. God and His 
Church leave it to us to estimate the frequency with 
which each soul should receive the Holy Communion. 
No rule is laid down, but it is left absolutely to each of 
us in the tribunal of penance. This is a great respon- 
sibility. According to the idea which each of us has 
in his mind, the Bread of Life is distributed to the 
faithful. It is the highest and most important part of 
direction. The sanctity of each soul may be said to 
turn upon it. Let us not act at random, but on prin- 
ciple. Above all, let us lean to the side of frequency. 
There are many souls who ought to communicate 
frequently and do not so, because they have wrong 
views upon this all-important subject. There are thou- 
sands of souls who might communicate weekly, and do 
not. There are many sinners who could be reformed 
if they were encouraged to communicate more often. 
Let us hasten to satisfy this thirst of the Heart of 
Jesus, and continually preach frequent communion. 

We end, as we began, with Thee, dear Lord. O 
come, Lord Jesus. Here is work for the Sacrament of 
Thy love. Our hearts are weary and heavy laden, oh ! 
come and refresh them. We have ceased to have 
any hope in ourselves; but, notwithstanding all sins 
and imperfections, one thing burns within us still 
undiminished, a thirst for the Blessed Sacrament. 

" As the hart panteth after the fountains of water, 
so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. My soul 
thirsteth after the strong living; God: when shall I 
come and appear before the face of God? My tears 
have been my meat day and night, whilst it is said to 
me daily, Where is thy God? These things I remem- 
bered, and poured out my soul in awe : for I shall go 



THE LIFE OF THE FREQUENT COMMUNICANT. 403 



ever into the place of the wonderful tabernacle, even 
to the house of God. Why art thou sad, O my soul? 
and why dost thou trouble me? Hope in God, fori 
will yet praise Him, the salvation of my countenance 
and my God." 



405 



APPENDIX. 



Note A, p. 30 — On the Scholastic Idea of Space. 

The views on the subject of space held by St. Thomas can 
only be gathered from different parts of his writings, and I 
will endeavour to collect a sufficient number of passages to 
justify what I have said concerning them. 

Space is coextensive with creation. Summa 1, qu. 46, 
art. 1 ad 4, and 8. 

Properly speaking, space has reference tq| bodies. The 
definition of locus is terminus corporis continentis. Opusc. 52. 

Nevertheless, spiritual substances are also subject to space, 
but in a different way from bodies, — i, qu. 8, art 2, ad. 1, 
where St. Thomas modifies the old axiom, " Xncorporalia non 
sunt in loco." 

Angels are in a manner in space. Summa, i, qu. 52, art. 
1, 2, 3. 

Angels were created in the empyrean heaven. Qu. 61, 
art. 4. 

Our Lord's Body is not in the Blessed Sacrament, sicut in 
loco. 3 qu. 76, art. 5. 

Nevertheless it is by accident subject to the laws of space, 
not in itself, but as connected with the species. Art. 6. 

The following passage from a learned German work on St. 
Thomas, will be found to be a good resume of his views on 
space : — 

<£ Our power of making space an object of thought has its 
origin in the perception that the same place is occupied suc- 
cessively by different bodies. Thus the movement of bodies 
and their change of place lead us to the concept of space. 



406 



APPENDIX. 



Although, however, it is not the same with bodies, yet its 
existence depends on that of bodies. It is the circumference 
of the corporeal things which it contains. Above all, there 
is no such thing as a vacuum, either within or without the 
corporeal world. Just as little is there infinite space. There 
is no space outside the corporeal world ; and that world is 
necessarily finite and circumscribed. In its very idea each 
body is limited, and an infinite number of such bodies is 
inconceivable, since there is no such thing as infinite multi- 
tude. .... Immaterial substances, as such, are not 
contained by space, rather they contain the place in which 
they are, and where they operate ; in this way the soul con- 
tains the body, the angels contain the corporeal thing on 
which they work, and God contains all things. Souls and 
angels are limited by their presence and operation to a 
determinate place : God, however, is simply above all space. 
As the soul is in its wholeness in each part of the body, so 
God also is wholly in each part of the universe; not, however, 
in the way as the soul. The soul is in all parts of the body 
as its essence : but God is in all the parts of the universe as 
the cause of their being. The soul is bound to the place in the 
body, because it is the essence of the body. The angel can- 
not be in many places at once, but, like the soul, can only be 
in one determinate place, though it is there by its operation, 
not by its essence. If, therefore, an angel wishes to go from 
one place to another, he must move, though he is not obliged 
to move through all the intermediate space." Werner, 
<4 Der Heilige Thomas von Aquino." Band. 2, p. 265. 

It is evident from this passage how very different are the 
points of view from which the schoolmen and modern writers 
severally regarded space. It may be truly said that the 
schoolmen held at once the reality of place and the non-reality 
of space. The truth of this observation will be made more 
evident from a comparison of the following passages of De 
Lugo. De Sacr. Euch. Disp, v, sect. 4. Nomine loci vide- 
tur intelligi superficies realis corpolis circumdantis, non tamen 
secundum se solum, sed prout immobilis, hoc, est prout aifixa 
tali spatio imaginario. A little further on, spatium reale is 
used as the equivalent of locus; while sect. 5, num. 123, he 
seems to say that spatium as distinguished from locus " non 
est aliquid reale." 



APPENDIX. 



407 



Note B, p. 33 — On Certain Scholastic Terms. 

In order to make the doctrine of St. Thomas intelligible to 
my readers, I have been obliged to use terms which, as far 
as I know, are not used by him or the earlier schoolmen. 
It may be useful for students of theology to give a short 
account of their views, and to explain their phraseology. 

I begin by saying, that all theologians universally assert 
most strongly that the Body of our Lord in the Blessed 
Sacrament is unextended. 1 shall give some quotations from 
very various schools to make this clear. Billuart, after say- 
ing that the quantity of our Lord's Body is all in the Host, 
adds : Quantitas autem Christi non est extensa ad locum nec 
ill i commensurata. Diss. 4, art. 2, In. San. Euch. 

De Lugo. — In. Sac. Euch. Diss. 5, sect. 1, Licet Christus 
Dominus in coelo habet extensionem quantitativam, in Eucha- 
ristia tamen habet alium modum essendi et ideo collocatur 
simul in pluribus altaribus quod adversus hcereticos probatur. 

Frassen, Philosophia Academica (a Scotist writer), — 
Negari non potest absque ingenti temeritate Corpus Christi 
in Eucharistia habere veram quantitatem continuam et per- 
manentem, alias non diceretur corpus humanum et organicum. 
Certum tamen est illam quantitatem ibi esse sine actuali 
extensione locali, nam ut fide constat Christi Domini Corpus 
est totum in toto loco Hostiae consecratas et totum in qualibet 
ejus mimina parte. 

These writers evidently consider the non-extension of 
our Lord's Body to be theologically certain and all but of 
faith. 

Let us now see how St. Thomas expresses the same truth. 
It is evident that he means that our Lord's Body is non- 
extended, when He saj^s that it is in the Blessed Sacrament 
per modum substantias. This is plain from the fact that the 
above-mentioned writers mean by the extension of a body 
its having parts locally outside one another. Now this is 
precisely what St. Thomas denies of our Lord's Body when 
he says that it is modo substantivo, v. for instance, iii, qu. 76, 
art. 4 and o. He there says it is tota in toto, et tota in qualibet 
parte; and he then denies that it is in itself under the com- 
mon laws of locality, though in each Host it is fixed to the 



408 



APPENDIX. 



place formerly occupied by the bread, or, as he expresses it, 
still filled with the quantity of the species. He founds this 
view upon his idea of substance. According to his view 
substance stripped of quantity is independent of place, indi- 
visible, the object of mind alone. He even speaks of it almost 
as if it were immaterial. Upon this substance, dividing it 
into parts, organizing it and giving it a local habitation, comes 
the category of quantity, never without a miracle separated 
from it, yet separable in idea, and therefore capable of sepa- 
ration by the power of God. 

This conception of the functions and office of quantity will 
explain other difficulties in the phraseology of St. Thomas. 
In the place which I have quoted above, he says that the 
whole quantity of our Lord's Body is in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. He means that it is there, undiminished, with all its 
parts, and, above all, it is there with all its organization. He 
adds, however, that it is not there modo quantitative, " after 
the usual manner of quantity." In other words, it is not, 
properly speaking, there locally, for, according to the ordi- 
nary laws of locality, it could be nowhere else, whilst in the 
Blessed Sacrament, though localized through the accidents 
in each Host, it is also in thousands of Hosts besides. And 
if it be asked, how, if quantity is there, is it possible that 
extension, which is its effect, should be absent, he answers, 
that extension is but the secondary effect of quantity, and 
can, therefore, be impeded by the power of God as long as 
its primary result — viz., the division into parts, is preserved. 

In the later schoolmen, when the use of the word extensio 
became common, this would be otherwise expressed. With 
them, the word has a much wider signification than in modern 
philosophy. With us extension is exclusively local, and is 
equivalent to empiric space. They, however, divided 
extensio into two kinds; besides extensio in ordine ad locum 
(which is modern extension), they also say that there is in a 
body extensio in ordine ad se, which is St. Thomas's quantitas, 
and would by us be called organization ; vide Frassen ubi 
sup. In other words, they lay down the doctrine which I 
have tried to describe in my fourth chapter, that organization 
can subsist without extension. 

It only remains for me to quote passages from an 
accredited commentator on St. Thomas to support my view 



APPENDIX. 



409 



of his meaning. John of St. Thomas, a Dominican, has 
these words on the formal idea of quantity : 

Formalis ratio quantitatis non potest consistere primario 
et per se in actuale repletione loci aut quacumque actuali 
extensione in ordine ad^ locum, constat enim ex mysteriis fidei 
sine istis affectionibus quantitatem inveniri ; est enim Corpus 
Christi in Eucharistia cum sua quantitate, sicut et cum 
reliquis accidentibus ut probat St. Thomas, iii, qu. 76, 4. 
Et tamen ibi non est modo divisibili nec modo mensurabili 
in ordine ad locum divisibiliter. Cursus Philosophicus, sect. 
16, art. 1. 

On substance, he says : " Sublata quantitate substantia 
careret omnibus punctis et consequenter omni unitivo par- 
tium per modum extensionis quia ut bene advertit, D. 
Thomas in 9? dist. 30, qu. 1 : substantia sine quantitate non 
est indivisibilis per reductionem partium ad punctum sed per 
carentiam omnis divisibilitatis. Unde non esset in ilia sub- 
stantia omnis motus sicut nec locus physicus sed solum esset 
in universo tanquam pars illius, non ut locatum in loco, 
omnes enim istae imaginationes tollendse sunt, quia sequuntur 
quantitatem ut locatam. Quare ilia substantia non est 
distans nec alicubi positive, sed locum habet existentium 
sine loco, sicut res extra mundum et angelus non operans. 
He adds afterwards the very strong statement: Nec tamen 
sequitur quod ilia entitas redditur spiritualis quia manet cum 
capacitate quantitatis quam non habet spiritus ; habit tamen 
modum quendam spiritualitatis^ sicut Corpus Christi in Sacra- 
mento. It is impossible to read such passages without 
being struck with the resemblance of the views of St. 
Thomas in substance to those of such modern philosophers 
as consider substance to be unextended force. Their method 
is perfectly different. Their fundamental conception of 
matter is different. So far from looking upon matter as a 
substance with a collection of extraneous accidents adhering 
to it, modern writers now look upon it as the permanent cause 
out of which the qualities and phenomena proceed. Never- 
theless, notwithstanding all these differences, there is a great 
resemblance in the fundamental idea of the ultimate non- 
extension of matter. In comparing scholastic to modern 
philosophy, our first impulse is to say that they are perfectly 
different. A more intimate acquaintance with them leads to 



410 



APPENDIX. 



the conclusion that they are, after all, not so dissimilar. 
Modern philosophy, as far as it is true, is rather a formula 
imperfectly expressing a truth which we only partially see ; 
and scholastic philosophy is another formula and another 
method, sometimes less clear and less convenient than the 
modern, and yet perfectly capable of expressing truth. If we 
only choose to master its phraseology, and to throw ourselves 
into its modes of thought, we shall have a higher opinion of 
it, the more we study it. We shall be the more convinced 
that, in some shape or other, it treats of all the questions of 
our own day, though they are often less neatly stated by the 
schoolmen, and that its fundamental ideas are such as never 
have passed away, and never can be destroyed. Above all, 
we shall see that the very terms which are consecrated by 
theology, such as substance, person, accident, have still a 
perfectly intelligible meaning, even to men of this genera- 
tion, if only they honestly apply their minds to master them. 

Note C, p. 87. — On the Philosophy of St. Thomas. 

In order to justify what is here said of the scholastic axiom, 
" Nihil est in intellectu quod non fuerit prius in sensu," it 
will be necessary to give a brief account of its bearings on the 
philosophy of the schoolmen, and of the use which they made 
of it ; and here, as elsewhere, I will take St. Thomas as their 
representative, without forgetting in the least that there were 
other schools of philosophy in the middle ages, authorized by 
the Church as well as the Dominican. 

First, how comes it that St. Thomas was led to lay so 
much stress on the axiom in question ? We must remember 
the saint's historical position. When we wonder at the stu- 
pendous edifice of the Sumnia, and gaze at the splendid whole, 
we must not forget that, like all other great books, it had as 
it were a private history. It was written for a particular 
purpose, and was the result of an anxious combat with par- 
ticular opinions. The doctrines of Averrhoes had even in- 
fected the Christian schools. The peculiar heresy opposed 
by St. Thomas was a definite Pantheism, which taught that 
all men had but one intellect, and which did not shrink from 
following out this doctrine into its legitimate conclusion, the 
denial of personality and of the moral responsibility of the 



APPENDIX. 



411 



individual. This is the key to much which would otherwise 
be inexplicable in St. Thomas. The great question which 
occupies him is the principle of individuation. Why is each, 
human soul one, and what constitutes its individuality is the 
central question of his system. Hence his insisting on the 
doctrine, that the soul is the form of the body. Hence his 
view, that the matter individuates the form. His opponents 
did not deny that bodies were separate and distinct. If, 
then, the saint argues, each man has a separate body, it also 
follows from these principles that he has a separate soul. The 
souls which are the forms of these several bodies must also 
be distinct individuals. Hence also the prominent place given 
by St. Thomas to all doctrines which illustrate the intimate 
union between body and soul. Hence his anxiety to show 
how the action of the senses is a condition to the operations 
of the human intellect. 

Secondly, another reason why St. Thomas insisted so much 
on the action of the senses in the operations of the intellect 
was in order to secure the objectiveness of human knowledge. 
Since his doctrine of conceptualism consists in holding that 
genera and species are concepts, that is, representations 
formed by the intellect, it was necessary to prove that they 
were at least in some sense similitudes of the outer world, in 
order to secure our knowing anything whatsoever of objects 
outside our minds. Truth, according to his definition, is the 
conformity of the intellect to its objects ; and this is effected 
by the intellect forming to itself a similitude of the thing 
which it contemplates. In order, however, to enable the 
mind to frame this resemblance, the likeness of the thing 
must previously have been impressed on the sense. Evi- 
dently the accuracy of the likeness depends upon the fide- 
lity of this first impression, and for this reason the sense 
is considered by him to be a passive faculty, determined by 
the sensible object.* The eye perceives colour, because the 
image of the colour, which colour exists only in the object, is 
impressed upon it ; and if the intellect is to frame to itself an 
accurate idea of the colour, it must have received the image 
faithfully from the sense and from the phantasia. Hence the 
anxiety of St. Thomas to connect the intellect as closely as 



* Summa, i, 79, 3, ad. 1 ; i, 85, 2, ad. 2. 



412 



APPENDIX. 



possible with the - faithful copy, impressed by the object on 
the sense. It is in order to obtain a firm stand-point for the 
ideas of the mind, which would otherwise be arbitrary fic- 
tions. He was perfectly aware that the mind colours the 
object after its own fashion, and that all that is the object of 
the cognition of a being can only be conceived according to 
the nature of the intellect of that being.* He knew that the 
similitude in the immaterial intellect cannot be the image of 
the matter of the object, but only of its form ; it was the more 
necessary therefore that at least the sensible image should be 
accurate, in order that the same intellect should be able to 
correct its idea according to the phantasm which it derives 
from sense. 

I do not think, therefore, that it can be denied that St. 
Thomas, for these reasons, assigned to the senses a greater 
part in the work of the intellect than many other Catholic 
philosophers, that he laid a greater stress on the necessity of 
a perpetual recourse to the phantasma, even when the idea 
was framed, and that intuition plays a less part in the opera- 
tions of the mind in his system than, for instance, in that of 
St. Bonaventure. 

Is this, however, the whole of St. Thomas's doctrine ? Is 
he simply a medieval Locke ? Does he hold that we have 
no knowledge of any truth except through data derived from 
the senses ? Consequently that we have no immediate know- 
ledge, no intuition of anything but the objects of sense? Does 
he refer all our knowledge to experience, and consequently 
shut out the possibility of necessary truth ? I think it can 
clearly be made out that St. Thomas held that the human 
mind has an intuitive faculty, that it possesses intuitions in 
the wider sense of the term, that is, native convictions of 
truths not derived from abstraction, nor obtained by inference, 
"original perceptions looking immediately upon the object 
or truth"] 

The schoolmen were perfectly aware of the tendency to 
idealism inherent in the doctrine of representative ideas. The 
question often presented itself to St. Thomas, whether the 
intellect was not in error, and consequently whether the views 

* Sumrna, 1. 85, 1, ad. I. 

f M'Cosh, Intuitions of the Mind, p. 26. 



APPENDIX. 



413 



which it presents to us may not be altogether false. Scotus 
says still more explicitly, " Quomodo habetur certitudo eorum 
quae subsunt actibus sensuum puta quod aliquid extra re vera 
est album quale videtur et calidum, prout sentitur." Scotus 
ap. Montefortino, Summa, torn, ii, p. 1, qu. 84. Hence arose 
Scotus's realistic reaction against St. Thomas, whilst in the 
next century Ockham's* counter-action actually drew from 
St. Thomas's doctrine the conclusion that truth is not the con- 
formity of the mind to an object, but the logical coherence of 
ideas with a mere arbitrary relation to the object. Without, 
however, pursuing further the history of the controversy, let 
us see what, according to St. Thomas, is our warrant for be- 
lieving that the idea which our mind abstracts from the objects 
of sense as conveyed by the phantasma really represents those 
objects. He answers that, in the process of abstracting the 
idea from the species impressa or phantasma, the mind is 
guided by certain intuitions, as they would now be called. 
In several places of his works he says that the intellectus agens 
possesses not from experience, nor from reasoning, but in its 
original constitution, certain principles by which it recognizes 
the form wrapped up in phantasmata. For instance, in 
his treatise De Mente, he says, "Ipsa anima in se similitudines 
rerum format, in quantum per lumen intellectus agentis 
efficiuntur formse a sensibilibus abstractse intelligibiles actu 
ut in intellectu recipi possint. Et sic etiam in lumine intel- 
lectus agentis nobis quodammodo omnis scientia originaliter 
indita, mediantibus universalibus conceptionibus quae statim 
lumine intellectus agentis cognoscuntur per quas sicut per 
universalia principia judicamus de aliis et ea pra3Cognoscimus 
in ipsis." De Mente. In the same place he speaks of "Princi- 
pia quorum cognitio est nobis innata." The same truth is most 
strikingly expressed in various passages of the Summa, where 
this intelligence of first principles is said to be non-inferential, 
and immediate — i, qu. 58, art. 3 ; qu. 64, art. 2, where the hu- 
man intellect is in that respect paralleled with that of the angels. 
Vide also Summa, xxii, qu. 8, art. 1. Nay, in a most remarkable 
passage, xxii, qu. 180, art. 6, ad. 2, the very word intuition is 
used of the knowledge of first principles, and it is compared 

* What I have said in the text on the realism of the Nominalists 
only applies to the early school, not to that of Durandus or Ockham. 



414 



APPENDIX. 



to mystical contemplation ? Vide also i, qu. 79, 12, where it is 
said that " the unchangeable laws of morals are known by us 
without reasoning through principia nobis naturaliter indita." 
for which we have a special habit, called synderesis. It is 
evident that these are true intuitions and not simply cases in 
which, by analysis, we see immediately a predicate involved 
in a subject. 

So palpable is it that what St. Thomas calls " intellectus" 
is a storehouse of a priori principles existing in the mind 
prior to experience, that a plausible parallel has more than 
once been drawn between the doctrine of St. Thomas and 
that of Kant.* In both there is the union of matter and 
form in the concept. Kant's Verstand may easily be com- 
pared to the intellectus agens, and the saint's principia 
naturaliier indita resemble the a priori concepts and princi- 
ples of the pure understanding. There are, however, very 
great differences. 

1. In Kant the form of our knowledge is entirely furnished 
by the mind. In St. Thomas the form is the similitude of 
the form of the object, and abstracted from the phantasmata. 
Nor is there any inconsistency in this, for it must be remem- 
bered that with the schoolmen the form of the object is 
immaterial — iii, qu. 75, 6. 

2. In Kant the cognition is a modification of the mind. 
In St. Thomas the species intelligibilis, or rather the verbum 
mentis, which expresses it, is a tertium quid between the 
mind and the object, a similitude of the object, framed by 
the mind to represent the object, and emanating from the 
intellect. 

3. In St. Thomas the action of God on the soul is never 
forgotten. Even in the natural order our souls are perpe- 
tually under the influence of God's operation, and those 
intuitions come directly from Him. Though their truth is 
self-evident, and though, if I may use the expression, they 
are self-luminous, yet, as in material light we can inquire into 
the cause of its luminousness, so with respect to those native 
convictions of the mind, we may inquire whence they are 
derived ; and, according to St. Thomas, these illuminations 
which light up the soul come from God. Prima principia 



* Vide Balmes, ap. Werner, 3, 638. 



APPENDIX. 



415 



quorum cognitio est nobis innata sunt quoedam similitudines 
veritatis seternae, unde secundum quod per eas de aliis judi- 
camus, dicimur judicare de rebus per rationes immutabiles 
vel veritatem increatam." It is from God and from God 
alone that they derive their immutableness and eternity, or as 
we should now say, their necessity. I might say much more 
on this subject. I might go on to point out the bearing of 
St. Thomas's doctrine on the transcendental conception of 
God ("Die Platonische transcendenz der Dominicanschulen," 
as Werner calls it,) or of his views on the Divine ideas. I 
have, however, said enough to show what injustice is done to 
this great saint by looking exclusively to one part of his 
doctrine. With all the defects in his psychology, notwith- 
standing the superiority of St. Bonaventure's proofs of the 
existence of God, I do not believe that modem philosophy 
will arrive at a stable foundation till it restores the depen- 
dence of the intellect on God, as laid down by the great 
mind of St. Thomas. 

Note D, p. 59 — On Intuition and Immediate Know- 
ledge. 

I need hardly say that I use the word intuition in the 
modern and not in the scholastic sense. I am quite aware 
that the schoolmen seem to restrict it to an immediate 
knowledge of an object, resulting from its presence. Thus, 
the beatific vision is called visio intuitiva, because it is the 
vision of God in Himself immediately present to the soul 
in heaven. The word is also applied to our perceptions 
of sensible objects. Thus Durandus defines cognitio intui- 
tiva to be ilia qua? immediate tendit ad rem sibi prsesentem 
objective, secundum ejus actualem existentiam : sicut cum 
video colorem existentem in pariete, vel rosam quam in 
manu teneo. Abstractiva dicitur omnis cognitio quae habe- 
tur de re, non sic realiter prtesente in ratione objecti im- 
mediate cogniti. As far as I am aware, it is only sometimes 
in St. Thomas, as quoted above, and in writers of the mys- 
tical school, that the word is used in a wider sense, like that 
in which it is now used, and applied to all immediate know- 
ledge, whether resulting from the presence of the object or 
not, as for instance, the knowledge of first principles. Thus, 



416 



APPENDIX. 



Thomas of Jesus says : Vis intellectiva in quantum est 
discursiva, dieitur ratio : in quantum est simplici apprehen- 
sione intuitiva, dieitur intellectiva." He goes on to give 
instances of this intuitive faculty in remarkable words. 
Secundum D. Thomam., i, qu. 79, 12, " In ratione specula- 
tive est quidam habitus animas concreatus quo principia prima 
in speculabilibus naturaliter terminis intellectis sine discursu 
mox ei innotescerent, ex quibus principiis procedit ratio ad 
notitiam conclusionum. Talia principia sunt haec et similia : 
Totum majus est sua parte : in ratione vero practica alius est 
habitus concreatus animas, quo prima principia in opera- 
bilibus cognoscit, ut quod Deo sit obediendum, bonum malo 
prasferendum et similia. Et hie habitus secundum D. 
Thomam vocatur synderesis." De Cont. div. lib. 2, c. 2. 

Two things seem equally evident from these passages ; one, 
that the word intuition or kindred words are very rarely used 
by the schoolmen in the modern sense ; the other, that the 
existence of intuitive or even inferential ideas is inculcated 
by them. To prevent mistakes, the following observations 
shall be added. 

1 . The doctrine that the human mind possesses an intui- 
tion of the truth of the existence of God is widely different 
from the ontologistical theory. Ontologism means the denial 
of all ideas intermediate between God and the soul. Intui- 
tion on the contrary implies a faculty from which the mind 
without deductive reasoning elicits ideas, which carry with 
them their own evidence. 

2. I think it may be allowed that St. Thomas nowhere 
asserts and certainly seems to deny that the knowledge of the 
existence of God is intuitive even in the modern sense. 

3. I have not suppressed what I have said in former editions 
about the intuitive knowledge of God, because the view is, as 
far as I know, a lawful one. It seems to be the theory that 
Deum existere est propositio per se nota quoad nos, only 
clothed in modern language. Now it must not be forgotten 
that St. Anselm and Albertus Magnus are quoted as holding 
this view. Again St. Bonaventure quotes St. Anselm with 
approbation and himself says : " tanta est Veritas divini esse 
quod cum assensu non potest cogitari non esse, nisi propter 
ignorantiam cogitantis, qui ignorat quid est quod per nomen 
Dei dieitur." — Liber i, Dist. 8; Part 1, qu. 2. Farther, 
even Viva, after arguing against the view in one sense, 



APPENDIX. 



417 



affirms the following proposition : — " Quamvis non sit per se 
notum quoad nos Deum existere sub conceptu Dei, seu 
cumuli omnium perfectionum, est tamen per se notum Deum 
existere sub conceptu aliquo convertibili cum Deo, puta Su- 
premi Legislatoris " Numinis colendi &c, De Deo, Part I, 
Disp. i, art, 1, 6. Accordingly, the passage respecting the 
intuition of the existence of God was allowed to stand by the 
careful examiner of my book, whom I have mentioned in the 
preface. The following passages seem also to affirm the 
tenableness of the view. 

Even the Thomist school allows that God is immediately, 
though confusedly, known under the notion of the ultimate 
end of our being, or else of the highest good. Non est 
dubium de Deo confuse accepto quia unusquisque ilium sic 
immediate cognoscit cum suum appetat ultimum finem. — 
Florez. Theologia Scholasticon, torn, i, 51. 

I will add but two quotations more from modern writers, 
one of which contains references to very ancient authorities : 
— " In this sense Jacobi is right when he calls the idea of 
God inborn and immediately certain. Vide S. Bonaventure, 
Itiner. Ment, c. 1, sqq., and in 1 Dist. Qu. 1. The holy 
Fathers call man Oeodi'SaKTos, on account of this immanent 
consciousness of God. Thomassim. Dogm. Theol. de Deo, 1. 
1, c. 3. Thus it is said in the Apostolical Constitution, viii, 
12: Thou hast given to man an inborn law {yo/xov ejn'+vTov.) 
so that he might have as a familiar possession, and in himself, 
the seeds of the knowledge of God (6Vw? ovicoOev ical Trap* 
eaVTod e'x oc ™ airipfiaTa T?y§ 6eo^vvoala's). ,y Hettinger, Der 
Beweis des Christenthums. 

Again, Greith, the present Bishop of St. Gall, says, in his 
Handbuch der Philosophic, p. 24, " The existence of God is 
native to the human spirit, in the sense that it is given at 
once and immediately with the faculty of reason. 

4. Nevertheless, the whole question of our intuitional 
faculties, and of the distinction between what the Germans 
call Idee and Begriff, is one which seems never to have been 
analysed, a task which I have by no means sufficient confi- 
dence in myself to attempt. 



2 E 



418 



APPENDIX. 



Note E. p. 95. — Authorities on the Non-Extension 
of Matter. 

I only claim for Kant an agreement with Leibnitz on the 
subject of the non-extension of matter. I am not acquainted 
with this portion of Kant's writings, and I am obliged to take 
his views secondhand from a trustworthy writer, who states 
them as follows : 

" Kant a imagine une hypothese, qui sans avoir les avan- 
tages de celle de Boscovich, a le meme inconvenient celui de 
conduire logiquement a la negation de l'etendue reelle. 
Kant suppose qu'il n'y a dans l'espace aucun lien absolument 
plein, aucun lien absolument vide ; que les forces motrices, a 
elles seules, constituent les corps ; que l'etendue n'est qu'un 
phenomene du mouvement, savoir, une expansion de forces 
motrices dans l'espace ; qn'a la force expansive est op- 
posee la force attractive en force de concentration ; que 
la reaction etant egale a Taction, plus une force expansive 
est concentree, plus elle tend a s'epandre, et qu'elle n'en peue 
etre empechee que par la force attractive d'une part, d'autre 
part les autres forces expansives qui lui font obstacle ex- 
terieurement; que la compressibilite est indefinie ; que Tim- 
penetrabilite se reduit a l'impossibilite d'une compression 
infiniment intense et par consequent de toute la matiere, en 
un point mathematique, et que ce serait cette concentration im- 
possibile qui seule pourrait produire en ce point le plein absolu." 
— Martin, "Philosophic spiritualiste dela nature," torn, i, 363. 

To show how widely spread are such views, I subjoin a 
passage from Cousin's Fragments Philosophiques," torn, i, 
p. 73. "Ne pourrait on reduire tous les modes reguliers 
d'action de la nature a deux modes qui dans leurs rapports 
avec Taction spontanee et refleche du moi et de la raison, 
manifesteraient une harmonie plus intime encore que celle 
que nous venons d'indiquer entre le monde interieur et le 
monde exterieur ? On entrevoit que je veux parler ici de 
Texpansion et de la concentration ; mais tant que les travaux 
methodiques n'auront pas converti ces conjectures en certi- 
tudes, j'espere et me tais ; je me contente de remarquer que 
deja les considerations philosophiques qui reduisent la notion 
du monde exterieur a, celle de la force ont fait grande route 
et governent a son insu la physique moderne. Quel physicien 



APPENDIX. 



419 



depuis Euler, eherche autre chose dans la nature que des 
forces et de lois ? qui parle aujourdhui d'atomes? et me me 
les molecules, renouvelees des atomes, qui les donne pour 
autre chose qu'une hypothese ? Si le fait est incontestable, 
si la physique moderne ne s'occupe que de forces et de lois, 
j'en conclus rigoureusement que la physique, qu'elle le sache 
ou qu'elle Pignore, n'est pas materialiste, et qu'elle s'est faite 
spiritualiste le jour oii elle a rejete tout autre methode que 
1'observation ou l'induction, lesquelles ne peuvent conduire 
qu'a des forces et a des lois, or qu'y a-t-il de materiel dans 
les forces et dans les lois ?" 

It may be useful to add a passage from a very different 
writer, which, bears on the whole question, though not 
exactly on the subject of this note. " There is not the 
slightest reason for believing that what we call the sensible 
qualities of the object are a type of anything inherent in 
itself, or bear an affinity to its own nature. A cause does 
not, as such, resemble its effects ; an east wind is not like 
the feeling of cold, nor heat like the steam of boiling water ; 
why, then, should matter resemble our sensations ? Why 
should the inmost nature of fire or water resemble the 
impressions made by these objects on our senses ? And if 
not on the principle of resemblance, on what other principle 
can the manner in which objects affect us through our senses 
afford us any insight into the inherent nature of those 
objects? It may, therefore, be laid down as a truth, both 
obvious in itself and admitted by all whom it is at present 
necessary to take into consideration, that of the outward 
world we know and can know nothing, except the sensations 
which we experience from it." " The attempt, indeed, has 
been made by Keid and others to establish that, although 
some of the properties we ascribe to objects exist only in our 
sensations, others exist in the things themselves ; and they 
ask from what sensations our notions of extension and 
figure have been derived ? The gauntlet thrown down by 
Reid was taken up by Brown, who, applying greater powers 
of analysis than had previously been applied to the notions of 
extension and figure, showed clearly what are the sensations 
from which those notions are derived, viz. : sensations of 
touch, combined with sensations of a class previously too little 
adverted to by metaphysicians, those which have their seat 



420 



APPENDIX. 



in our muscular frame. On this subject also, M. Cousin 
may be quoted in favour of the essential subjectivity of our 
conceptions of the primary qualities of matter, as extension, 
solidity," etc. — Mill's " System of Logic," vol. 1, p. 66. 

The juxtaposition of these passages will suffice to show by 
what various writers and on what various grounds the essen- 
tial extension of matter is denied. 

Note F, p. 81. — On the Use of the Word "Phenomena." 

It is necessary here to warn the reader that by phenomena 
I do not mean mere subjective appearances, that is, affections 
of our organs, caused immediately by God, without external 
cause. This view has been held by some theologians, 
especially by Cartesians, and has never been declared con- 
trary to the faith. The vast majority of theologians, how- 
ever, are strongly against it ; and the Sacred Congregation, 
in 1649, condemned the following proposition: " Accidentia 
Eucharistica non sunt accidentia realia, sed merse illusiones, 
et prasstigia oculorum." It seems then that, according to 
theologians, it is necessary to hold that the species are real. 
In the Holy Eucharist, then, it appears that there are cer- 
tain qualities remaining after the conversion of the substance 
of bread, over and above the affections caused by them on 
our senses. As has been observed, it is very difficult to 
reconcile this with the Cartesian view, that material objects 
are simply extension, and that what are called qualities are 
simply effects mechanically caused on our senses by exten- 
sion. If the extended object is taken away, it is not easy to 
see, on this view, what remains but the affection of the 
organism, nor how it can be caused, except by the immediate 
power of God. There is, however, no difficulty on the 
hypothesis mentioned in the text, that material bodies consist 
of a collection of unextended forces. Some of these forces 
are permanent, others are variable, for while the substance 
remains the same phenomena are perpetually varying. 
Each body, therefore, may be considered to be a collection 
of changeable forces, resulting from the activity of a great 
substantial force. It is evident that the shifting forces may 
be looked upon as qualities emanating and radiating from a 
central force, which is the permanent source of them all, 



APPENDIX. 



421 



and which is the substance. It is also clearly conceivable 
that these forces should remain after the central force or 
substance is gone. On the other hand, Leibnitz found 
considerable difficulty in his way when he attempted to 
adjust this portion of theology to his views, because body, 
according to him, is a collection of monads ; that is, of forces 
utterly independent of each other, and in no way whatsoever 
standing in the relation of cause and effect. It is, therefore, 
very hard to see why any of these forces are at all more 
substantial than others. Vide his letters to P. des Bosses, 
especially letter 21 ; and also Dr. Russell's valuable notes to 
the " Systema Theologicum." I need not say that I am in 
no way committed to Leibnitz's doctrine of monads. 

Note G, p. 227. — On the Frequency of Communion in 
the Middle Ages. 

I have spoken in the text of the general state of things in 
the Church ; it is very possible, however, that in isolated 
places the custom of more frequent communion was kept up. 
In a passage to which I have referred, in Tauler's fourth 
sermon on Corpus Christi, he seems to say that such was the 
case at Cologne. "Es ist zu Coin eine gute gewohnheit, 
das man gerne das heilige sacrament empfangt." This falls 
in curiously with a passage of Albertus Magnus, De Euch., 
dist. vi, tract 2, c. 3. " De his autem qui mulieres omni die 
communicant, videtur mihi quod acriter reprehendendi sunt ; 
quia nimio usu vilescere faciunt sacramentum vel potius ex 
levitate mulierurn putatur esse desiderium quam ex devotione 
causatum." From the severity, however, with which the 
writer speaks, I cannot help considering that the practice 
was connected with the vast amount of spiritual illusion 
which was fermenting on the banks of the Rhine ; and the 
tone of Tauler's sermon falls in with this view. There is 
also a passage in James of Vitry's Life of Blessed Mary of 
Ognies, Bollandists, June 23, which implies that communion 
was not so infrequent at Liege as we have seen that it was 
elsewhere. We should expect this from the amount of 
devotion kept up in the towns of the Low Countries by such 
associations as the Beguines. It must not be forgotten also 
that the Church, as is proved by decrees of particular 



422 



APPENDIX. 



councils in the thirteenth century, especially in England, 
made continual efforts to induce the faithful to communicate 
three times a year. Nevertheless, the exceeding infrequency 
of communion among saints living in the world, as well as 
the testimony of grave writers, such as Alexander of Hales 
and Scotus, in unimaginative scholastic treatises, incline me 
strongly to the view, that such councils were most imper- 
fectly obeyed, and that communion more than once a year, 
except in particular places, was the exception. This is 
remarkably confirmed by Durandus, a similar writer, who 
says in the beginning of the fourteenth century : c< Postremo 
vero refrigescente devotione multorum statuit Innocentius 
Tertius ut saltern semel in anno sc, in Paschate fideles com- 
municent et adhuc pauci inveniuntur." 4, Dist. 12, qu. 3. 

Note H, p, 259. — On the Use of the Word 

" COMMUNIO." 

The passage is to be found in St. Innocent's letter to Exupe- 
rius, Bishop of Toulouse. I am aware that, in the opinion 
of Morinus, " communio" here signifies absolution ; as, how- 
ever, I have Petavius on my side, I venture to differ from 
him, and to consider that it means the Holy Eucharist. It 
is true that the words " communio" and '« viaticum" are very 
ambiguous, and that Morinus contends that, if used without 
addition, they mean absolution. Notwithstanding, however, 
all difficulties of interpretation, I cannot see how " pceniten- 
tia," in the Pope's letter, can mean anything but the Sacra- 
ment of Penance with absolution. In what possible sense 
can Penance be given to a dying man if it does not mean 
the Sacrament ? In the parallel letter of Pope Celestine to 
the Bishops of Gaul, there is no doubt whatsoever that 
" poenitentia" means absolution in the Sacrament of Penance, 
for it is equivalent to " liberare ex onere peccatorum." If 
this be the case, " communio," in St. Innocent's letter, can 
only mean the Holy Eucharist. The only difficulty in the 
way of this interpretation is the use of " reconciliatio" and 
" remissio," as equivalent to " communio." Yet so intimately 
was full reconciliation connected in the minds of the Chris- 
tians of the time with the reception of the Holy Communion 
that it is not wonderful that these words should be used of 



APPENDIX. 



423 



the whole act of readmission to the Church, including the 
being admitted to the Holy Eucharist, just as even now many 
of the poor cannot be persuaded that they have been absolved 
till they have received. For instance St. Ambrose says, 
lib. ii, de Poenit. c. 3, Quotiescunque peccata donantur, 
corporis ejus Sacramentum sumimus ut per sanguinem ejus 
fiat peccatorum remissio." Vide also De Benedictionibus 
Patriarcharum, c. 9, " Altaris reconciliatio" is also a common 
phrase for the reception at once of the Holy Communion and 
restitution to Church communion. Another very strong 
reason for considering penance to include absolution is the 
frequent asseveration of the principle in the primitive Church, 
that penance was never imposed except with a view to abso- 
lution. Vide St. Ambrose de Poen. lib, c. 1 6 ; also St. Cyprian's 
letter to Antonianus, and even Tertullian, quoted by Orsi, 
p. 146. 

Thus it seems to be very probable that St. Innocent means 
here the Holy Communion, whatever may be held of the use 
of the words " viaticum" and " communio" elsewhere. Cer- 
tainly Morinus, lib. vi, c. 21, argues very ably that in the 
important thirteenth canon of Nicaea efyoSiov and Koivwvla 
mean absolution. I would, however, though with diffidence, 
suggest that much may be said in favour of their meaning the 
Holy Eucharist. I do not see why the canon should not 
mean that the Blessed Sacrament should be given to the 
dying ; in the latter clause euyapKnla would then be not con- 
trasted with, but a synonym for koivujvIcl. It is natural that 
whilst, as a general rule, the dying should be ordered to re- 
ceive the Holy Eucharist, the bishop should still be com- 
manded to see that there was no impediment. It is certainly 
very remarkable that John of Antioch's version of the canons 

of Nicgea has kciI KOivivvlas tv^wv Kal 7rpoa(popa9 ueTac^vou, 

as if to do away with the ambiguity of Kotvwvla and to prove 
that i<p6hiov means the Holy Eucharist. The same is the read- 
ing of the version in Hardouin, torn. 1, 430. Evidently the 
Arabic version, canon nineteen, understood 11 viaticum" to 
mean the Holy Communion. Hardouin, p. 466. It is also 
evidently the reading of the version of the canons of Nicaea 
used in the sixth Council of Carthage. Hardouin, 1247. 
These seem to be very strong reasons in favor of the view 
that icpodiov means Holy Communion. It is true that in the 



424 



APPENDIX. 



seventy-seventh canon of the fourth Council of Carthage, 
u viaticum" meaning seemingly absolution, is contrasted 
with " viaticum Eucharistise." On the other hand, a com- 
parison of the canons from the Councils of Orange and 
Girona, alleged in Morinus, p. 413, 414, with the seventy- 
sixth canon of the same Council of Carthage, incline me to 
think that even there " viaticum" means the Blessed Sacra- 
ment. 

A strong confirmation of this view of Pope Innocent's 
letter is contained in the seventh article of his letter to 
Decentius. No one can doubt that the penitents there 
directed to be absolved on Holy Thursday received the Holy 
Communion at once, yet there also "remissio" is used of 
their readmission, as in the controverted letter ; and, most 
remarkably, Morinus himself, lib. 9, c. 3. interprets " com- 
munio," in that letter to Decentius, of the Holy Communion. 

Note J, p. 261. — On Public Penance for Secret Sins. 

The difficulty of settling the point is proved by the variety 
of the opinions of writers on the subject. It is worth while 
briefly to state the history of the controversy. Attention 
seems to have been first drawn to the subject by Jansenist 
writers. Arnauld boldly asserts that all those guilty of 
secret mortal sins of every kind were subjected to public 
penance, and deprived of the Holy Eucharist, under pain of 
refusal of absolution in the primitive Church. French Pro- 
testant writers, in arguing against the existence of the 
Sacrament of Penance, were not slow to avail themselves of 
this view, and pointed out the practical impossibility of such 
a legislation, and the consequent absurdity of the supposi- 
tion. With characteristic obstinacy, however, the Jansenists 
stuck to their point. Boileau, in his History of Confession, 
though forced to give up a part of the view, still persists in 
saying that every species of sin, even of thought, if it was 
mortal, was subjected to some kind of public penance, and 
visited by the privation of the Holy Eucharist. " Defendo 
tantummodo poenitentibus pro omni specie peccati mortalis 
aliquo tempore prudentia et arbitrio Episcopi prcefinito, 
Eucharistas participation e interdictum fuisse. Cap. 3, p. 56. 
" Fateri necesse est primis Ecclesise temporibus confestim 



APPENDIX. 



425 



actam fuisse quandam paenitentiam publicam pro quibusdam 
peccatis cogitationum quibus voluntatis consensus conjunctus 
f uerat ;" and in order to cover the monstrous conclusion, he 
goes the length of asserting, cap. 3, p. 55, " that very few 
sins of thought are mortal." Petavius, in his "Penitence 
Publique," first proved clearly that only three kinds of secret 
mortal sins were subjected to public penance. He, however, 
as well as Albaspinaeus, still held that absolution was never 
given to those three kinds of sin. Morinus and Orsi both 
refuted this opinion. The controversy was now reduced to 
one point. Morinus holds that secret sins of those three 
kinds were not absolved without public penance ; Francolinus, 
on the contrary, is of opinion that secret sins were in foro 
interno, never visited with public penance without the con- 
sent of the sinner, which was never extorted by the refusal 
of absolution. His theory is as follows : speaking of the 
passages in which Fathers and Councils speak of public 
penance for secret sins, he says : " In ejusmodi locis aut non 
agitur de Paenitentiis sacramentalibus sed extra-sacramen- 
talibus, (Ecclesiam vero posse in foro externo publice punire 
etiam occulta delicta, non est dubium,) aut agitur quidem de 
Paenitentiis Sacramentalibus iis-que publicis, sed quae libere 
acceptabantur, cum pro delictis occultis imponebantur. Cler. 
Rom. 1., Disp. vii. Perhaps it may be that the truth lies 
between the opinions of these two writers, and that though 
the Church, as a general rule, required public penance for 
secret sins of those three kinds, she nevertheless easily accepted 
a secret penance when a public penance could not be had. 
Besides the arguments brought forward in the text, it may 
be well to add a few more. 

1 . There is a remarkable passage in Origen's commentary 
on the Psalms, Horn. 2, in Ps. 37, on the necessity of confes- 
sion, which deserves to be cited at length. ''Si peccator 
ipse sui accusator fiat, dum accusat semetipsum et confitetur, 
simul evomit et delictum atque omnem morbi digerit causam. 
Tantummodo circumspice diligentius, cui debeas confiteri 
peccatum tuum: proba prius medicum cui debeas causam 
languoris exponere, qui sciat infirmari cum infirmante, flere 
cum flente, qui condolendi noverit disciplinam, ut ita demum, 
si quid ipse dixerit, qui se prius et eruditum medicum osten- 
derit, si quid consilii dederit, facias et sequaris, si intellexerit 



426 



APPENDIX. 



et prgeviderit talem esse languorem tuum, qui in conventu 
totius Ecclesiae exponi debeat et curari, ex quo fortassis et 
caateri gedificari poterunt et tu ipse facile sanari multa hoc 
deliberatione, et satis perito medici illius consilio procurandum 
est." This passage was written about the year 247, and 
contains a whole picture of the confessional of the time. It 
shows that there was a secret tribunal, a forum internum ; 
that a sinner might choose his confessor ; that the question 
whether public penance should be done belonged to the 
decision of that confessor, and lastly, that it was a matter of 
counsel. 

2. Let the reader look attentively at the arguments 
brought forward by Morinus for his opinion, lib. v, c. 9. It 
seems to me that several of them imply that the Church 
principally had a view to the punishment of scandalous sins 
in the discipline which is there referred to. For instance, 
the example of Theodosius is brought forward ; he is said to 
have been visited with public penance, "Maxime quia pec- 
catum ejus celari non potuit." St. Aug., Serm. 392. Again, 
in the passage quoted as from St. Augustine (though really 
from St. Cassarius of Aries), the argument used for public 
penance is, " Quia justum est ut qui cum multorum destruc- 
tione se perdiderit, cum multorum aedificatione se redimat." 
If this is the case, it is easily conceivable that secret sins 
which gave no scandal should be exempted from the operation 
of the canons which principally respected scandals. 

3. Morinus himself shows that there were very consider- 
able differences in the mode of treating secret and public 
sinners. He says, lib. 5, c. 16, "impositio Pasnitentias 
publicae ob crimina occulta, sicut et reconciliatio, privatim a 
Presbytero et Episcopo inconsulto plerumque fiebat." It 
seems to me that the arguments of Morinus in the same 
place, to prove that in these cases the penance was public, 
are very inconclusive. Granting, however, that the penance 
was, as a general rule, public, there would be surely little 
difficulty in allowing the penitent to do his penance in pri- 
vate, that is, not to join the crowd of public penitents, when 
he had already been let off the publicity of the imposition, 
and the absolution. Morinus allows that confession, imposi- 
tion of penance, and absolution, were, by a sort of dispensa- 
tion in many cases, all in private; it seems difficult to 



APPENDIX. 



427 



suppose that the dispensation was not often, by a parity of 
reasoning, extended also to the publicity of the penance. 

4. It was an acknowledged maxim with the early Church 
that, whenever the number of sinners was so great that a 
schism might be dreaded, she relaxed her rules of public 
penance. For instance, St. Augustine says that, in his time, 
many sins had become so common that they dared not 
excommunicate a layman who was guilty of them. Enchi- 
ridion, c. 80. In another place, Cont. Ep. Parminiani, lib. 
3, 14, speaking of excommunication, he says: " Quum idem 
morbus plurimos occupaverit, nihil aliud bonis restat nisi 
dolor et gemitus, nam consilia separations et inania sunt et 
perniciosa, si contagio peccandi multitudinem invaserit." 
There can be no plainer proof that the Church enforced 
public penance when it could, but relaxed the law when it 
was found impossible to exact the penalty. It is curious 
also that the saint calls separation' a counsel," an expres- 
sion equivalent to another used by St. Caesarius of Aries, 
where he exhorts his hearers " of their own accord to remove 
themselves from the communion of the Church." St. Aug. 
ed. Ben., torn, v, Appendix, Serm. 104. 

5. There is a remarkable passage in a sermon ascribed 
by some to St. Augustine, by the Benedictines to St. 
CaBsarius of Aries. The preacher represents the sinner 
exhorted to public penance as remonstrating: " Forte est 
aliquis qui dicat : ego in militia positus sum, uxorem habeo 
et ideo pcenitentiam agere quomodo possum ?" The saint 
answers : " Quasi nos quando Pcenitentiam suademus, hoc 
dicamus et ut unusquisque magis sibi capillos studeat auferre 
et non peccata dimittere et vestimenta potius evellat quam 
mores. In other words, he would have been satisfied with a 
firm purpose of amendment without the external signs of 
public penance. St. Aug. ed. Ben., torn. 5, Appendix, 
Serm. 258. 

6. Finally, the praise given to Fabiola, a lady of rank, 
for appearing among public penitents, is utterly inconsistent 
with the notion of its being compulsory. — Fleury, lib. 18, 21. 

Note K, p. 283. — On Jansenist Insincerity. 
I have in the text accused Arnauld of insincerity, espe- 



428 



APPENDIX. 



cially in pretending that Jansenists only wished to introduce 
public penance for public sins. Insincerity is a grave 
accusation, which I should not bring forward unless I had 
grave reasons for making the charge, which I will now sub- 
stantiate. I am perfectly aware that Jansenists varied in 
their statements and in their practice ; this very variation is 
the chief proof of their want of veracity. It is useless, 
therefore, to bring counter-assertions from their writings: 
these only tell more strongly in my favour if I can oppose to 
them contrary facts and assertions. Let the reader weigh 
the following proofs that the Jansenists wished to introduce 
public penance for secret sins. The absolute necessity for 
public penance follows directly from the opinion that absolu- 
tions given previous to the performance of public satisfaction 
are null. That such was the opinion of Jansenists seems to 
me plain. 

1. Among the propositions delated to Cardinal Mazarin 
as being contained or fairly deduced from the Augustinus 
was the following : " Que la puissance des clefs ne reside 
dans i'Eglise que pour ceux qui font Penitence publique." 
Faillon, Vie de M. Olier, torn, ii, pp. 149, 184. 

2. The Jansenist ecclesiastics of the parish of St. Merri, 
at Paris, taught expressly, " Que Pabsolution sacramentelle, 
sans la satisfaction, e'tait nulle." Ibid. p. 146. What they 
meant by satisfaction is proved by their practice quoted 
below. 

In the year 1672 an anonymous Jansenist book was 
published in Belgium, containing the following proposition : 
" Ordinem prcemittendi satisfactionem absolutioni induxit 
non politia aut institutio Ecclesiastica sed ipsa Christi lex et 
praescriptio, natura rei id ipsum quodammodo dictante." 

4. Let us examine attentively Arnauld's doctrine on the 
subject. I am quite aware that in Part ii, c. 15, of the 
Frequente Communion, he says : " Ce serait une grand 
erreur de condammer generalement toutes les absolutions et 
communions, qui precedent Faccomplissement de la satis- 
faction." It follows from this that he does not say that all 
absolutions before satisfaction are null. Nevertheless, it 
follows from the principles which he lays down that the 
enormous majority of absolutions thus given are invalid, as 
Viva has shown on the 16th proposition, condemned by 



APPENDIX. 



429 



Alexander VIII. Again, he does not say that he requires 
public penance for all mortal sins ; nevertheless, it follows 
from his principles, as we shall see that St. Vincent of Paul 
has shown. 

1. He lays it down as a rule that arguments drawn from 
the universal tradition of the Church are not probable, but 
demonstrative. He then declares that that universal tradi- 
tion shows that public penance was exacted for all mortal 
sins whatsoever in the primitive times, an opinion which of 
itself separates, by an abyss, Jansenist rigorism from the 
spirit of the Church. This opinion he tries to prove at 
length throughout the second part of his book. In c. 3, he 
proves that the Church exacted public penance for secret 
sins. He says, c. 8, that St. Leo looked upon ecclesiastical 
penance as remede necessaire pour rentrer dans lesperance 
de la vie' eternelle" for all sins after baptism, and that it is 
not a canonical ordinance, but ordained by Christ Himself. 
He also says that this was the perpetual tradition of the 
Church and the common sentiment of all the Church. From 
all this, notwithstanding all protestations, it follows rigorously 
that public penance is necessary. 

2. He lays it down as a general rule, that it is " obligatory" 
to perform the penance before communion, and the context 
shows that he includes absolution : (he joins absolution to 
communion, pp. 401, 404, 406, 503,) the contrary is the 
exception. 

3. He says in many places, for instance pp. 492, 499, that 
the Fathers universally held that man to make an unworthy 
communion, who communicates before having done his 
penance. 

4. He tells us of but one exception to this general rule, 
viz., absolutions given to the dying, which he takes care to 
inform us are generally useless. Part ii, c. 15. In that 
place, amongst others, he speaks of c< the obligation" of doing 
penance before reconciliation. It follows from this that, as a 
general rule, absolutions given before the accomplishment of 
the penance are null, since an absolution given to a man not 
disposed to fulfil an obligation is useless. 

5. I might have hesitated to accuse Arnauldof unveracity, 
if St. Vincent of Paul had not preceded me. I may well 
shelter myself under the authority of one who is a contempo- 



430 



APPENDIX. 



rary witness, one whose name is a synonym for charity, and 
whose early friendship for St. Cyran exempts him from the 
charge of prejudice. I quote from letters written by him to 
the Abbe d'Horgny, and cited in the Abbe Maynard's new 
life of the saint, liv. 5, c. 3. 

" Quant a ce qu'on attribue au livre de la Frequente Com- 
munion de retirer le monde de la frequente hantise des sacre- 
ments, je vous repondrai qu'il est veritable que ce livre 
detourne puissament tout le monde de la hantise frequente de 
la sainte Communion et de la sainte confession, quoiqu'il 
fasse semblant, pour mieux couvrir son jeu d'etre fort eloigne 
de ce dessein. 

<{ II est vrai que ce livre a ete fait principalement pour 
renouveller la penitence ancienne comme necessaire pour 
entrer en grace avec Dieu. Car quoique Tauteur fasse quel- 
quefois semblant de proposer cette pratique ancienne comme 
seulement plus utile, il est certain neanmoins qu'il la veut 
pour necessaire, puisque par tout le livre il la represente 
comme une des grandes verite s de notre religion, comme 
la pratique des apotres et de toute l'eglise durant douze 
siecles, comme une tradition immuable, comme une institu- 
tion de Jesus Christ. II prend pour verite l'opinion qui 
porte qu'on ne trouve dans les anciens Peres que la penitence 
publique en laquelle VEglise exergat la puissance de ses clefs; 
d'oii il s'ensuit par une consequence tres claire que M. Arnauld 
a dessin de retablir la penitence publique pour toutes sortes 
de peches mortels, et que ce n'est pas une calomnie de 
l'accuser de cela, mais une verite que l'on tire aisement de 
son livre, pourvu qu'on le lise sans preoccupation de'esprit. 
Vous me dites en second lieu qu'il est faux que M. Arnauld 
ait voulu introduire l'usage de faire penitence avant l'absolu- 
tion pour les gros pecheurs. Je reponds que M. Arnauld ne 
veut pas seulement introduire la penitence avant l'absolution, 
pour les gros pecheurs, mais il en fait une loi generale 
pour tous ceux qui sont coupables de peche mortel." After 
quoting some words of the book he adds: "II faut etre 
aveugle pour ne pas connaitre pas ces paroles que M. Arnauld 
croit qu'il est necessaire de differer l'absolution pour tous les 
peches mortels jusqua'a l'accomplissement de la penitence ; et 
en effet n'ai je pas vu pratiquer cela par M. de St. Cyran et 
ne le fait on pas encore a l'egard de ceux qui se livrent 



APPENDIX. 



431 



enticement a leur conduite ? Cependent cette opinion est 
une heresie manifeste." After the witness of the saint I 
might dispense myself from proving, from the practice of the 
Jansenists, that they wished to introduce public penance for 
secret sins ; I, however, add the following fact: — 

The apologists of the Archbishop of Sens pretended that 
this public penance was inflicted only for public sins. How 
far this was true will appear from the following passage : 
" M. du Hamel, lorsqu'il etait cure du diocese de Sens avait 
distingue les penitents en quatre ordres. Ceux qu n'etaient 
coupables que de peches secrets, formaient le premier : ils 
assistaient, a l'office tout au bas de l'Eglise et separes des 
autres paroissiens de quatre pas de distance." Vie de M. 
Olier, torn, ii, 145. Du Hamel was afterwards parish priest 
of St. Mery at Paris. Arnauld, notwithstanding his pro- 
test, that he only meant public penance for public sins, was 
perfectly well aware of Du Hamel's practice, for he alludes 
to it in the preface of his " Frequente Communion." Vide 
" Defense de la Discipline qui s'observe dans le diocese de 
Sens," p. 140. The absurdity of the revival of primitive dis- 
cipline by De Gondrin was not lost upon his contemporaries. 
He was the Archbishop of Sens mentioned by De Retz as 
being too scandalous a prelate for him to imitate. Ste. 
Beuve, Port Royal. Tom. iv, 258. 



THE END. 



INDEX. 



Absolution, 105; conditions of, 

242. 
Accidents, 53. 
African writers, 251. 
Agde, Council of, 217, 221, 251. 
Age, tendencies of the, 92 ; middle, 

not pious, 171 • 
Ages, the middle, 222, 238 ; in- 

frequency of communion in, 

227 ; not best period of Church, 

238.' 

Alexander Severus, 19G. 

St. Alphonso, 267; on weekly 
communion, 326 ; on the power 
of frequent communion, 349, 
377. 

Amalarius, 219. 

St. Ambrose, 272 ; on commu- 
nion, 300. 

Amon, 203. 

Ampere, 169. 

Animism, 141. 

Angelique, Mere, 280. 

Angels, creation of the, 30 ; in- 
telligence of the, 125; powers 
of fallen, 180. 

Anne of Gonzaga, 280. 

St. Anselm, 36, 47. 

Anthropomorphism, 21 1 . 

Antioch, corrupt, 212. 

St. Antony of Egvpt, 108, 203, 
205,209,211. 

Arnauld, 36; book of, on fre- 
quent communion, 281 ; rigor- 
ism of, 284 ; occasion of his 
writing on frequent commu- 
nion, 286 ; insincerity of, 430. 

St. Arsenius, 209, 215. 

Atoms, 62. 

St. Augustin, 217. 



Augustinus, of Jansenius, 281. 
Aurelius, Marcus, 191. 
St. Auxentius, 210. 
Avarice, 371. 

Bagnesi, the blessed M., 234. 

St. Basil, 197, 215, canons of, 249. 

Benedictines, communions of the, 
218, 226, 238. 

Bede, venerable, 219. 

Benevolence, love of, 104. 

Berkeley, on matter, 52, 53. 

St. Bernard, 388. 

Berulle, de Cardinal, 41. 

St. Bonaventure, on the life of 
our Lord in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, 132 ; on the union of the 
soul with God, 182 ; his proof 
of the existence of God, 415, 
420. 

Boniface VIII, 221. 
Borgia, Csesar, 225. 
Boscovich, 69. 
Bossuet, 36, 277, 354. 
Bouillon, Godfrey de, 224. 
Bourdaloue, 338, 354. 
Brocken, Spectre of the, 324, 
Buffon, 70. 

Cacciaguerra, 236. 

Cainites, 246. 

Callistus, Pope, 256. 

Canons, the penitential, 260. 

Capacity, obediential, 158. 

Cartesianism, sceptical, 37, 45 ; 
how used by Spinoza, 48 ; iden- 
tifies matter with extension, 50. 

Catacombs, the, 90. 

St. Catherine of Siena, 109, 1 18, 
181, 233, 237, 388. 

2 F 



436 



INDEX. 



St. Catherine of Genoa, 234. 
Catholic, the worldly, 372. 
Cauchy, 69. 
Cassian, 215. 
Celestine, 259. 

Chalice, the, why withheld from 

the laity, 321. 
Charlemagne, 217 ; on weekly 

communion, 199. 
Charles, Duke of Brittany, 234. 
Cheselden, 70. 

Christianity, definition of, 234. 
Church, joyousness of the, 357- 
Civilization, 332. 

Cienfugos, Card., Vita abscon- 

dita of, 133, 178, 179. 
Clara, the blessed, 234. 
Clitheroe, Mrs., 399. 
St. Columba, 234. 
Commodus, 196. 
Cogito ergo sum, 37, 45, 47. 
Collette, the blessed, 234. 
Communio, 425. 

Communion, Holy, 111, 116; the 
conscious union of our Lord 
with the soul of man, 124; 
effects of, 154, 163 ; opinions 
of theologians on the effects of, 
173, 183; daily, in the primi- 
tive Church, 190; infrequent, 
in the middle ages, 224, 424 ; 
frequent, 290; rules for, 292; 
daily, 314; qualifications for, 
325 ; of the worldly, 375. 

Complacency, love of, 104, 

Conde, 41. 

Condillac, 50. 

Concomitance, 178. 

Consciousness, 54. 

Crime, statistics of, 333. 

Creation, the, 126. 

Crusaders, the, 222. 

Cruveilher, M., 69. 

Cuvier, 70. 

St. Cyprian, 252. 

St. Daniel the Stylite, 214. 
Decius, 195. 

Discernment of spirits, 329. 
De Lugo, on habitual sin, 345. 
Descartes, 36 ; uncatholic nature 



of his philosophy, 38; popu- 
larity of his doctrines, 40 ; his 
scepticism, 35 ; his criterion of 
truth, 47. 

Desert, Saints of the, 270. 

Diocletian, 195. 

Dispensations of God, 88. 

Dispositions of the communicant, 
317. 

Domine non sum dignus, 131. 
Dress, love of, 373. 
Duverney, 70. 

Eckhart, 228. 
Education, modern, 332. 
St. Elizabeth of Portugal, 224. 
St. Elizabeth, 387; chant of, 
389. 

Emilia, the blessed, 234. 
England, Puritanism of, 306; 

morality of, 331. 
St. Ephrem, 214. 
Ether, 147. 

Eucharist, the, impossible before 
the incarnation, 109, 110; final 
cause of, 82; distributed by 
lay hands during the persecu- 
tions, 192. 

Euchites, 211. 

St. Euthymus, 206, 208. 

Excommunication, 247- 

Ecstatica, 222. 

Extension, 32 ; makes no diffe- 
rence to the innate powers of 
the soul, 123 ; of matter, 420 

Exuperius, 259. 

Fabiola, her penance, 430. 
Faith, justification by, 95. 
Faraday, Professor, on the nature 

of matter, 70. 
Fathers of the Desert, 198 ; their 

facilities for communion, 201, 

205, 216. 
Fear of God, 391. 
Ferrer, St. Vincent, 230, 237. 
Fisher, Cardinal, 299. 
Fleury, 188. 
Fomes peccati, 303. 
Force, idea of, 56, 62 ; energies 
| of, 63. 



INDEX. 



437 



Fora, 263. 

Forgiveness, 68. 

Formality of vision, 135. 

Forms, 26, 28, 140. 

St. Francesca Romana, 234. 

St. Francis, 223. 

St. Francis of Sales, 108, 395. 

Frequent communion, 290; rules 

of, 293 ; what it requires, 301. 
Fronde, the, 279, 280. 
St. Fronto, 203. 

Gallienus, 195. 
St. Gerasimus, 206. 
St. Gertrude, 182, 232. 
Gluttony, 371. 

God, fear of, 391 ; trust in, 393. 
St. Gregory the Great, 217- 
St. Gregory VII, 221. 
St. Gilbert of Sempringham, 222. 
Goethe, 70. 

Grace, sanctifying, 100, 163 ; 
effect of, 102, 103, 104; the 
want of man, 156 ; an entity, 
157; source of, 161; sacra- 
mental, 166; actual, 167; habi- 
tual, 317. 

Guillore, 354. 

Habits, power of, 341, 344. 
Habitudinarian, 336. 
Hales, Alexander of, 226. 
Helen, the blessed, of TJdine, 235. 
Hermits, 207. 

Hippolytus, 254, 256 ; rigorism 

of condemned, 258. 
Host, Jesus in the, 122. 
Howard, Philip, 399. 

St. Ida, 227. 

St. Ignatius, bishop, 262. 
St. Ignatius, 235. 
Images, how necessary to vision, 
145. 

Imperfect, communions of the, 
288. 

Indevout, communions of the, 
317. 

Indivisibility is not absolute sim- 
plicity, 137. 
Infinity, idea of, 59, 



Innocent I. 259 ; on penance, 275. 
Innocent XI, on communion, 328. 
Intellectus agens, 413. 
Intuitions, 60; scholastic and 

Leibnitzian, 415. 
Insincerity of Arnauld, 430. 

St. Jane Frances de Chantal, 395. 
Jansenism, 231 ; condemnation of, 

in the practice of the Church, 

336. 

Jansenists, attempt to revive 
public penance, 276, 281 ; in- 
sincerity of, 430. 

Jansenius, 282. 

John the Abbot, 210. 

St. John Chrysostom, 212, 216. 

St. John Climacus, 210. 

Jonas, bishop of Orleans, 219. 

Julia Mammaea, 196. 

St. Juliana Falconieri, 119. 

Jussieu, 70. 

Justification, process of, 99. 
Justinian, 215. 

Kant, 414. 

Kings, the three, 130. 

Knowledge, morning and evening 
of the angels, 126 ; how ac- 
quired, 164. 

Lapsed, the, 268. 
Latrocinium, 213. 
Laura, 205. 
Lavoisier, 70. 

Leibnitz, 43, 46, 56; dissatisfied 
with modern philosophy, 54 ; 
opposed Descartes, 56 ; on the 
idea of substance, 60; on the 
composition of matter, 61. 

St. Leo condemns rigorism, 259. 

Lessius on the life of our Lord in 
the Blessed Sacrament, 132. 

St. Lidwina, 233. 

Life of our Lord in the Host, 
149. 

Linnaeus, 70. 

Locke, birth of, 50 ; denied the 
idea of substance, 53. 
, Louis XIII, 276. 
i Louis XIV, 276, 277- 



438 



INDEX. 



St. Louis, 108; communions of, 
124. 

St. Louis of Toulouse, 224. 
Love of God, 86; power of, 167- 
Loneliness, 395. 
St. Lucian, 192. 
St. Lutgardis, 226. 
Lyons, Martyrs of, 191. 

Mackintosh, Sir James, 69. 
Mabillon, 41. 

St. Macarius, 200, 204, 208. 

Malatesta, the blessed, 234. 

St. Mellitus, 217. 

Marcia, 196. 

Marcian, 212. 

Marchion, 246, 267. 

Marin, 203. 

Mark, Abbot, 210. 

Matter, 25, 28; doctrine of St. 
Thomas on, 27, 34; modern 
theories of, 36 ; Descartes on 
37 ; Spinoza on, 48 ; Locke on, 
51; Berkley on, 53, cause of 
phenomena, 62. 81 ; unextended, 
66, 78 ; can it think ? 158. 

St. Mary of Egypt, 215, 270. 

St. Margaret of Cortona, 227- 

Massillon, 354. 

Matter, authorities on the non- 
extension of, 420. 
Matrimony, sacrament of, 175. 
Messalians, 211. 
Metanea, Monks of, 200. 
Molecules, 62. 
Monro, 70. 

More, Sir Thomas, 399. 
Morinus, 268. 
Moses, Abbot, 210. 

Nature, human, 163. 
Necessary truths, 56. 
Nero, 245. 
Newton, 43. 
Nominalists, the, 133. 

Olier, M., 279. 

St. Onophrius, 216. 

Operations of our Lord in the 

Blessed Sacrament sensible, 

170. 



Opium eating, 341. 

Opus operatum, 305, 316, 349. 

Origen, 196. 

Orsi, 188. 

St, Pacomius, 202. 
Paganism, 89. 

Pantheism, _ 46, 107, 175, 227; 
the peculiar heresy opposed by 
St. Thomas, 410. 

Paphnutius, Abbot, 210, 216. 

Paraguay, 193, 286. 

Pascal, 41. 

St. Paul, 290. 

Paul, St. Vincent of, 279. 

Paul of Samosata, 195. 

Pavilion, Bishop of Aleth, 283. 

Penance, public, 264 ; not im- 
posed on clerics, 265. 

St. Perpetua, 193. 

Penance, public, 427- 

Petavius, 285 ; on public penance, 
427. 

Phantasma, 126, 143. 

Phenomena, of nature, 23 ; in 
what sense real, 64 ; on the 
use of the word, 423. 

Philip, the Arab, 196. 

St. Philip Neri, 108, 232: pro- 
motes frequent communion, 
236 ; advice of, to communi- 
cants, 304, 320. 

Pichon, Pere, 312. 

St. Pior, 204. 

Pceman, Abbot, 208. 

Poly carp, 191. 

Port Royal, 282. 

Positivism, school of, 78. 

Possession, 180. 

Poor, the, to be treated with re- 
spect, 396. 
Power, imperial, 158. 
Predestination, marks of, 323. 
Priestley, 70. 

Principles, supernatural, 396. 
Puseyism, 306. 

Quietism, 211. 
Raymond of Capua, 233. 



INDEX. 



439 



Realism, 37- 
Reaumer, 70, 
Recidive, 243, 336, 338. 
Reformatories, 349. 
Respectability, 362. 
Retz, De, Cardinal, 41, 280. 
Reverence, 318. 
Richelieu, 36. 
Riches, 358. 

Rigorism, 244 ; condemned, 257 ; 

origin of modern, 280; leads to 

laxity, 287. 
Rodriguez, 199. 
Roses, wars of the, 225. 
Rosweide, 203. 

St. Sabas, 206. 

Sable, Madame de, 280. 

Savonarola, 231. 

Sacrament, the Blessed, life of 
Jesus in, 116, 120; science of 
Jesus in, 129; given to all, 
162; for whom instituted, 172, 
241. 

Scete, churches at, 204. 

Scilitan, the martyrs, 195. 

Scaramelli, on weekly commu- 
nion, 326. 

Scotus, 226. 

Scavini, 371. 

Searching after God, 38. 

Sens, Archbishop of, 278, 28S. 

Sensation, 138; scholastic theorv 
of, 143. 

Senses, can our Lord use them 
in the Blessed Sacrament ? 
130. 

Serapion, 192. 

Science, infused, of our Lord, 

128, 150. 
Scruples, 290. 

Sacramenta propter homines, 241, 

244, 266. 
Sinai, monastery of, 215. 
Selfishness, 367. 
Severus, Septimus, 195. 
St. Simeon Stylites, 211. 
St. Simeon the Elder, 214. 
Soul, of Jesus, 122; form of the 

body, 140. 
Space, idea of, 64. 



Schisms, by whom supported, 
374. 

Space, scholastic idea of, 405. 

Species, immaterial, 127. 

Spinoza, 46: retorts upon Des- 
cartes, 48. 

Sins, venial, no obstacle to com- 
munion, 300,314; chief source 
of, 303. 

Stahl, 70. 

St, Cyran, 281. 

St. Hilaire, Geoffrey, 70. 

St. Venant, de, M., 70. 

Stewart, Dugald, 69. 

Suarez on the life of our Lord in 
the Blessed Sacrament, 132, 
146; on weekly communions, 
307, 326. 

Substance, spiritual, 31 ; existence 
of, never disproved, 35; idea 
of, whence it comes, 66. 

Summa of St. Thomas, 4. 

Surin, 354. 

Suso, Henry, 228. 

Tauler, 228, 233, 237. 
Tharcisius, 192. 
Theatres, 197- 
St. Theodore, 202. 
St. Theodore of Canterbury, 
218. 

St. Theodulus, 214. 

St. Thomas of Canterbury, 399. 

St. Thomas, 4, 22 ; his doctrine 
of substance, 27, 34, 61, 66: 
on the effects of communion, 
167, 197; on worldliness, 271 ; 
philosophy of, 410. 

Thomas of Jesus, 208. 

Tertullian, 252. 

Trajan, 191. 

Toletus, Card., on frequent com- 
munion, 349. 

Transubstantiation, objections, 
made to the doctrine of, 10, 12, 
53; what it is, 27, 29; super- 
natural, 139. 

Trent, Council of, 302. 

Truths, necessary, 56. 

Union with God, 96; what it is, 



440 



INDEX. 



Ill ; how wrought in Holy 
Communion, 177. 
Unitarianism leads to Pantheism, 
47. 

Unrest, 387. 

Vainglory of the devout, 322. 
Valliere, Duchess de la, 280. 
Valerian, 195. 

Varani, the Blessed Baptista, 234. 
Vaubert, Father, 298. 
Vasquez on daily communion, 
328. 

Vienne, Council of, 226. 

Vision, the beatific, of Jesus, 124; 

formality of, 135 ; theories of, 

J 44. 



Viva on the life of our Lord in 
the Blessed Sacrament, 132; 
on the effects of communion, 
172. 

Voltaire, 50. 

Vocations, 384. 

World, hateful to God, 356 ; kinds 
of, 363; contradicts Christi- 
anity, 367. 

Worldiness, 358 ; what it con- 
sists in, 365, 370 ; definition of. 
376. 

St. Zeno, 210. 
Zenobia, Queen, 195. 
Zosimus, Abbot, 216. 



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